Pirituba services center

This is a project we did for a small services center in São Paulo. The ground floor hosts three big stores, with different ceiling heights depending on their position on the site and their entrance level, and two upper floors of offices space, with open plan, dividable according to future necessities.

This project is based on several concepts that are precious to us, that all aim at reinforcing the interdependence between the different systems, like between the people of the city and the project, or between the users of the project and the vegetation.

The project is intentionally simple in its form and functioning. A simple concrete structure, without finishing, supports two slabs. On these two slabs, light metallic boxes host the offices, with open spaces left between them, that become terraces. Everything is protected from the sun by green roofs and curtains.

A fundamental point of the project is that it enlarges the public space. Instead of showing a simple facade along the sidewalk, it brings people inside the terrain, and creates a series of small additional differentiated spaces, that bet on diversity instead of area, like a parklet.

The central space, although occupied by parking, offers other interesting features: Its size and the fact that it is in direct contact with the ground allows to plant large trees, that protect the whole public space beneath from sun and rain, and bring to the offices the marvellous quality of being "inside the trees".

The setbacks at the sides and bottom of the terrain are obviously left free and planted, which, we think, is the true meaning of these setbacks, to permit natural ecosystems to connect with each other and flow around buildings.

The vertical circulation, between the parking level, the ground floor and the office levels, is open, and made with industrial equipment (stairs, bridges and elevator), that can be fully mounted in factory and installed on site in one effort.

The whole project is more designed to be a system, configurable and reprogrammable, than a finished, static and immutable building.

Chech the blend file here