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A garden as a seed of a world.
A garden as a seed of a world.
Everything was contained there,
it didn't seem so
but it was
the wind
the flower
the shadow
the latency
the transformation
the desire
everything,
even another idea about what a
world might yet become.
As in a collection, in which objects are selected and preserved, the fragments of an existing structure (concrete, steel, aluminum, glass) are preserved and reassembled. The ordered form is dissolved so that it can be reworked from its own debris. In this rearrangement, the fractions of collected material leap out of what was once mere opacity, becoming sparks revealed by light through their reflections and through their openings.
The collection of fragments accumulates in panels of white concrete, which mark the boundary of the garden as a microcosm. Within it, a suspended envelope made of these same fragments forms another kind of place, sheltering the spaces for an office, a gallery, and a suite. A staircase, a wooden column, and a work of art make up the supports of the structure that suspends the envelope amid the garden. Slabs and beams of wood and steel form the floors and act as support for the façade elements. The balance of the whole is achieved through a precise interplay of unevenly distributed weights and tensions. Above it, two horizontal planes form a small pavilion that crosses the virtual boundary between the new and the existing.
Organic forms engage in dialogue with the amorphous character of light, forming diaphanous volumes that pierce through the floors and organize the interior space of the new proposal. Transparent and atmospheric, these bodies of light bring the presence of the exterior inward, with the whole oscillating spectrum of its tones. In a singular way, they seem to disorient the perception of interior and exterior, blurring built and unbuilt, and making latent the experience of inhabiting a garden. An essential counterpoint to the house next door, a renovation by Ruy Ohtake from the 2000s.
Location São Paulo, Brazil
Year: 2026
Author: Gustavo Utrabo
Team: Henrique Seckler, Fernanda Britto, Gabriel Dias, Julia Frenk, Pedro Garcia, Alessia Rossetton, Ellinor Geiger, Letizia Bellini
Albane Goux-Thiercelin, Cristobal Benvenuto, Dario Miquel, Francisco Acuña, Luiz Felipe Garcia, Tomas Barros
Consultants:
Structure: Ita Engenharia