Before inside designer Fábio Galeazzo came into the film, this urban shack was a two-bedroom home constructed in the 1930s which had poor ventilation and low ceilings. In accordance with Galeazzo, you will find many sleepless nights of wondering how to breathe fresh life into the shack without destroying the house’s existing structure. “My clients are in the design industry, and they live in São Paulo — the fifth largest metropolitan region in the Earth, therefore it is crowded and swelling with individuals,” says Galeazzo. “I needed to make a weekend retreat that separated them from the chaos that comes with living in a metropolitan location without destroying the house.” The result, completed in June 2011, is a converted urban shack having a open floor plan which incorporates the couple’s love of nature without shying away from colour.
in a Glance
Who lives here: A couple, both performers
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Size: 914 square feet
That is interesting: The kitchen rotates on an axis to face the garden or the living area.
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Though São Paulo enjoys temperate weather during the entire year, it still has to suffer through a few humid, subtropical days. Overlapping shade sails cool what is stored underneath and expand the shade patchwork on the inside and exterior brick walls into the sky.
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Circles and curves abound in the living room, together with the suspended nest chair’s circular base, a round jute rug, the Chifruda chair’s parabolic headrest and Galeazzo’s unique invention, an orbital bookshelf window.
Galeazzo says that developing a project that is so different from prior projects brings “a certain degree of anxiety in the practice of construction and design,” but when the design and remodeling was finished, it had been incredibly rewarding to see that the home’s new incarnation.
Lines blur between outdoors and indoors throughout the shack, and it’s that more apparent than in the living area; the orbital bookshelf window beckons light into the inside and visually brings the outside indoors.
Suspended chair: Nestrest, Dedon; orbital bookshelf: custom made, Fabio Galeazzo; Chifruda chair: limited edition, Sergio Rodrigues
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This image shows a view of the window from the outside together with the exterior stone cladding, which offers that the shack with thermal insulating material.
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This close-up celebrates the elegance of this Chifruda seat. Despite being in his 80s, the Brazilian modernist furniture designer is still young in mind, evident from the lively yet still completely functional design of this chair.
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“Most everyone who enters the area says they would love to spend some time here to unwind, and really, that is what the whole point of this project was : to make people feel great in a location,” says Galeazzo.
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The orbital kitchen made by Galeazzo’s team rotates on an axis so you can turn it facing the garden or living area for daily usage. “The kitchen is capable of integrating into the [garden and living room] spaces,” Galeazzo says. “They could choose if they wish to prepare food outside on a bright day or should they would like to watch the news from the tv in the living room, which they can see from the kitchen”
The orbital kitchen is the articulation of how the home designs resists spatial and physical obstacles, which traditionally come from the form of walls and other dividers.
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The midcentury-modern decoration choices of Galeazzo are celebrated by this film. The Brunno Jahara credenza, metal Emeco Navy seats and Crown Major Chandelier add a laid-back sensibility — and vibrant geometry — into the urban shack.
The inside wood floors are FSC-certified wood planks, which means that they did not contribute to some forest destruction or emerge from firms engaged in human rights abuses.
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“We call that the exterior walls a sort of ‘anticamouflage,’ because aesthetically the home is meant to stick out from nature, but the design and retrofit construction technique of the home were meant to have absolute and utmost respect for nature,” says Galeazzo.
Autoclaved bamboo poles give the home the needed construction for much more headroom.
Evelyn Muller
A glass half-partition (not visible in this image) supporting the timber column divides the wet area into two components. The faucet tube is your chrome line hanging from the roof, and that, from a distance, occasionally fades into the steel image window frame.
Sink: Cuba Quadrada p Piso, Deca
Evelyn Muller
The interior and exterior wall colours echo the Brazilian modernist painter Tarsila do Amaral’s work, and anywhere in the shack, there is visual stimulation in the form of colour patchwork.