A modern apartment in Sao Paulo brings the outdoors indoors

Housed in a 1962 building in São Paulo, the Terrace apartment Designed for the modern era by Goto Requina Studio. The Brazilian company has redesigned the apartment into one full of flexible and reconfigurable spaces that adapt to different uses. To satisfy the owner’s request for a balcony in a building without them, they transformed the entire apartment to feel more like an indoor/outdoor space with plants throughout, even hanging from the ceiling.

Besides the physical transformation, the designers incorporated new digital technologies, such as a home management system that can be controlled via a smartphone, smart keypads, or voice commands. Everything from access to the apartment, lighting, irrigation, audio/video, blinds, etc. is automated for convenience.

The kitchen is accessed through large pivot doors that can either open up the two spaces or keep them separate.

Each room has a biophilic design with an array of plants in each space. In addition to the plants hanging from the hanging pot rack and in the kitchen windows, in the corner is a brick plant bed with herbs.

The reversible sofa provides two seating areas in the main living room. Along the window side of the space are a variety of potted and hanging plants, while on the other side, a hanging plant box featuring greenery spreads across the ceiling above the living space. The amount and variety of vegetation creates a specific microclimate that helps reduce high temperatures and improve air quality.

In the living room, a 120-degree projector and screen doubles as a workspace meeting room with a built-in camera and microphone for business calls. When used for fun, the wall acts as a digital gallery displaying NFTs owned by residents. On party days, some of the furniture moves around to create a dance floor with interactive acoustic lighting attached to planter boxes.

The furnishings are an eclectic mix of high-profile designers, such as Martin Bass, Antonio Citterio, Yrigo Kocaburo, Le Corbusier, Jasper Morrison, and Frank Gehry, along with well-known Brazilian designers, including Sergio Rodriguez, Jean Gillon, Irmaos Campana, Zanin Caldas, and Lina. Bo Bardi, and finally up-and-coming Brazilian designers such as Guilherme Wentz, Ronald Sasson, Daniel Jorge, Lucas Neves, Carol Gay, Jacqueline Terpins, Ovo Design, PAX Arq, and Alva Design. Above all, architect Estudio Guto Requena created a number of pieces used in the design.

The flexible floor plan allows the living room, dining room, office and bedroom spaces, all aligned, to be all open to each other, fully enclosed, or a combination as desired for the day’s activities. Soundproof glass sliding doors and motorized blinds outside the spaces when extra privacy is required.

To complement the wood paneling on the building’s exterior, the firm obtained original drawings from the office of Butte and Robyn, the building’s original designers. They scanned it and with the help of algorithms, were able to recreate the graphic pattern on the wooden surfaces in the interior. Textured wood surfaces define transitions as spaces move from the public to the more private.

A flexible space between the dining room and bedroom serves as a home office and seating area. A long table and lamp swivel from the old wood floors removed from the apartment. The setup allows for better viewing from the window or for DJs playing at their parties.

The master bedroom can be closed off for privacy or watching movies on a projector.

More ornate wood pivot doors open the master bedroom through to the closet and bathroom.

Photo by Mayra Akyaba.