기존 주택에서 확장된 오피스는 크게 미팅영역, 사무영역 그리고
외부 전면 버퍼스페이스로 구획된다.
이전 공간의 장소성을 연결하는 미팅영역은 리셉션과 작품전시를
위한 구역으로 인포메이션과 기능적 프로그램 수행을 위한
새로운 공간 이외에 기존 공간의 흔적을 최대한으로 보존한다.
새로운 백색공간은 이전공간, 적벽돌과 깨어진 돌무더기와
낯설은 이종접합을 통하여 시공간을 함축시킨다. 그리고
이 함축된 공간 속에서 프로젝트의 컨셉이 적나라하게 표출된다.
미팅영역을 지나 뒷편, 새롭게 증축한 사무영역은
2개층 높이의 작업공간과 사장 및 임원을 위한 임원실을
2층에 위치 시킨다. 또한 미팅영역과는 대조적으로
합리적인 작업활동과 플렉서블한 작업공간을
보장하는 오픈스페이스로 계획된다.
reviewed by SJ
When Casa REX, an important Brazilian design office, came to us looking
for a reform of its new seat, the initial goal was to create a new
identity for the physical space of the office, which didn’t exist before
because of its rapid expansion.
Architects: FGMF Arquitetos
Location: São Paulo, SP, Brazil
Architects In Charge: Fernando Forte, Lourenço Gimenes, Rodrigo Marcondes Ferraz
Project Area: 603 sqm
Project Year: 2012
Photographs: Rafaela Netto
Coordinators: Ana Paula Barbosa, Marilia Caetano, Sonia Gouveia
Collaborating Architects: Bruno Araujo, Bruno Milan, Marina Almeida
Interns: Claudia Bicudo, Felipe Bueno, Gabriel Mota, Gabriela Eberhardt, , Mirella Fochi, Rafaela Arantes, Rodrigo de Moura, Talita Silva
A former residence in Pacaembu, built in the 1940’s, was chosen. The
property had had several reforms poorly made through the decades that
hid almost entirely the building’s original architecture.
Since the beginning, the clients’ program was divided in three parts:
the meeting area, where there would be the reception and a place
exhibiting the office’s projects. The studio’s area, completely
separated of the first one, where everybody would work together in an
open space. And, finally, the external front area, with restricted and
controlled access.
Having issues such as the limited budget in mind, we decided to use some
unusual resources while designing the building: a lot of demolition and
the usage of some infrastructure pieces.
In the façade we piled stone gabions, a material used as an earth
retaining on the roads and the like; together with the REX team we made a
specific pagination where we used red sandstone and big gray gravel to
form a visually remarkable façade. One of these modules was suppressed
and we put a plate with negative cuttings indicating the office.
In the reception and meeting area, we made an extensive demolition: we
created a two-story high ceiling, destroyed the floor and removed every
plaster of the original walls, in a form of “architectural archaeology”.
Inside this space with a demolished aspect, we created a pure, clean,
white path leading the visitor to the two meeting rooms – entirely white
blocks inside those ruins. The rest of the space was filled with the
same gravel of the façade, and it is in that “inter-space” that the
exhibition of the office’s projects will be mounted, almost as a gallery
amidst the building’s ruins.
As for the studio’s area, it was designed as a two-story high ceiling –
which was built – occupying a little more than a half of the entire
space, and a section of normal ceiling, original from the construction,
where the upstairs acts as a large room for the company’s president. In
the two-story high ceiling, a “cloud” of luminaires helps lightening the
place, in addition to delimiting spaces. On the two-story high ceiling
back wall, behind which we found the bathrooms, the financial area and
the models area, we made a 70-m2 bookcase with piled pre-shaped concrete
pieces that are normally used for channeling streams, consigning the
façade. Into this big bookcase, we have incorporated some wooden flights
of stairs, in addition to the modules themselves, in order to reach the
footbridge connecting the director’s office to the rest of the agency.
Using heavy building materials in an innovative way as well as demolishing tiles and slabs creates a unique space, very different from the existing offices. It is almost as a mix of a gallery and a corporative space, something different for an unusual company.
from archdaily