Livraria da Vila - Isay Weinfeld

Livraria da Vila, a bookstore in Sao Paulo, was designed by architect Isay Weinfeld, as a renovation of an old, long and narrow neighborhood lot, completed in 2007. Improvements to the structure were made to accomodate floor openings, and a basement addition. The books are the main characters in this space, and are displayed on every wall from floor to ceiling, and at the entrance's storefront revolving doors.

MAM-RJ

MAM-RJ (Modern Art Museum - Rio de Janeiro) was designed by architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy, a native from Rio de Janeiro, and was inaugurated in 1958. The collection includes work by main Brazilian artists as well as international recognized artists. The Museum is part of a recreation complex by the ocean, that was completed in 1965.

In the sixties, the Museum was an important venue for vanguard artists meetings and events. That's where Helio Oiticica exhibited his "Tropicalia" work, starting then the "Tropicalista" Movement in the Brazilian arts.

The landscape was designed by Roberto Burle Marx, a renowned Brazilian landscape designer.

The building consists of several concrete columns that wrap and suspend a rectangular concrete/glass two-level box, leaving the street level opened for pedestrians. That makes the site very fluid and accessible. To get into the museum, one needs to go under the suspended structure.

View from inside the Museum.

Rodin Museum

The Rodin Museum in the city of Salvador, Bahia State, was designed by Francisco Fanucci and Marcelo Carvalho Ferraz, and inaugurated on 2006. Rodin masterpieces will be displayed at the main historic renovated building - the Palace Comendador Catharino - and in the gardens. A contemporary addition was built to display temporary exhibits, and it connects to the main building through a bridge overlooking the garden. The integration of the two buildings - that are one century apart in age - and with its gardens express the Brazilian attitude of integration and tolerance. The Museum also serves as a place for gathering, and the exchange of arts and culture.

Photos by Nelson Kon.

Club Nox

This is a nightclub called "Club Nox", located in the city of Recife, Pernambuco State. Designed by Metro Arquitetura + Juliano Dubeux.

Cidade Nova Building

Rio de Janeiro has its first LEED certified project! It's the first Core & Shell certified building in Brazil and Latin America, and the second one outside the United States. The 52,000 m2 building was developed by Bracor, and it's home to Petrobras, the Brazilian Oil Company.

Masp (Sao Paulo's Museum of Art) by Lina Bo Bardi

Imperial Museum

Imperial Museum, where the Portuguese Royal Family lived after moving to Brazil. It's located in the city of Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro State.

Octávio Frias de Oliveira Bridge

The Octavio Frias de Oliveira bridge is best known as The Cable-stayed Bridge. It was opened in May 2008 in São Paulo, Brazil over the Pinheiros River.
Project design team was Catão Francisco Ribeiro, architect João Valente, and engineer Edward Zeppo Boretto.

This is the longest curved suspended bridge in the world - 290 meters (950 feet) long each way. The large X in the middle is 138 meters (450 ft) tall, and a set of 144 steel cables were used to hold the structure of the curved roads.

At rush hour, about 5,000 vehicles per hour will cross the bridge each way.

The Octávio Frias de Oliveira bridge is the only cable stayed bridge in the world that has two curved roads connected to the same tower.

After three years of construction, the bridge is considered one of the main touristic spots in the city.

Maiorca Building by Lourenco Sarmento Architects

The project, designed by Paulo Cesar Lorenco and Bruno Sarmento, aims for flexibility and elegance, achieved by the intersection of planes, and the combination of wood, stone and glass throughout the facade and its interiors.

Lobby

Veranda

Living/ Dining

This building consists of five 4-bedroom condo units plus a duplex penthouse, and it's located in a prominent area in the City of Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais State.

Municipal Theatre of Rio de Janeiro

The Municipal Theatre of Rio de Janeiro was built in the early 1900's, as part of the Mayor's project to modernize Rio de Janeiro's downtown area, following French design principles. The theatre was designed by Brazilian Francisco de Oliveira Passos and French Albert Guilbert and it was inspired by the building "Palais Garnier" in Paris.

Penthouse addition by TAMABI Architecture

Two basic principles guided our project for the construction of a new penthouse floor to house a single 234-square-meter apartment, located at the base of the Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro’s forested Jardim Botânico neighborhood.

The first was a demand for an open space with the least possible amount of internal subdivisions, with the intent to provide good cross ventilation and establish continuity between the interior areas and the surrounding landscape, particularly the Atlantic Rainforest located right in front of the four-story building. Our solution was to group together personal and service areas (bedroom, bathrooms, laundry room) in one block that runs along the east façade, thus creating an open space for the rest of the apartment that connects the front terrace all the way to the back terrace. The open space accommodates the kitchen, dining room, living room, entrance stairs, and study.

Such layout gave the interior space a more longitudinal reading. As a counterpoint, a geometrical volume holding the building’s large water tank was inserted across the width of the ceiling. The added volume is visually emphasized by its lower ceiling height and different surface treatment. It is further detached through a skylight, which makes the entire continuity of the volume visible from the inside.

At the north end, which holds the living and dining rooms, a system of pivoting doors placed across the entire 8.80-meter width of the apartment allow for complete opening of the space, promoting direct contact with the Tijuca Forest and the remarkable statue of Christ the Redeemer at its mountaintop.

The second principle was to use renewable resources wherever possible. The building’s old asbestos roof was replaced with a green roof, which reduces both the thermal effect of the sun’s radiation into the apartment and its reflection back into the atmosphere. This solution, allied with the allowance of cross ventilation, eliminated the need for air conditioning in the penthouse apartment.

In addition to its heat and noise reduction benefits, the green roof can be accessed directly from inside the apartment and serves as a garden to be enjoyed by its residents, including the possibility to grow a vegetable garden and an area to create compost from organic waste. Solar panels were installed at the highest point of the building for water heating. A deactivated cistern in the building’s underground floor was repaired to store rainwater collected from the roof, which can be reused both for watering the plants and cleaning the external areas of the building.

The abundant natural lighting provided by the large window openings in all four façades was intensified by the addition of skylights. These skylights were designed with a system that permits constant air circulation and keeps the environment comfortable.

The ‘Magui Building’ was constructed in 1951, a time of urban occupation in the neighborhood and a period of great significance to the development of the Modern Movement in Rio de Janeiro’s urban architecture. It was during that same period and in those vicinities that great works were produced, including the Antônio Ceppas buildings (1952) by Jorge Machado Moreira and the Lagoa Hospital (former Sul América Hospital, 1952) by Oscar Niemeyer and Hélio Uchoa, with its landscape designed by Burle Marx.


*Written by TAMABI Architecture