The Brigadeiro Apartment was, during the eighties, the scenario for great memories for a newly married couple. There they gathered friends and family and experienced memorable moments, such as the birth of their child. Ten years later, the social area seemed small and another child was in their plans, reasons that made the couple look for another apartment and keep the old one rented for 30 years.
The younger daughter always asked her parents no to sell the apartment, because she wanted to move there one day, a wish recently fulfilled when she, an architect and designer, decided to remodel the apartment with her also architect and designer partner. The couple was won by the surroundings, which encourage stimulating walks through the central part of the city that lives in constant change. Walking a few blocks, they arrive at their favorite cafes and restaurants and in their studio, where they work together.
From the apartment the view is expansive, a rare characteristic in the city’s centers, and they were both captivated by the natural light, the sun and wind streaming in through the windows.
The 1970’s apartment required the replacement of all the electrical and plumbing installation, besides a radical change in the plan. Three bedrooms became two, the utility area was reduced and the service bedroom was eliminated, all this so the living and dining room could become larger, brighter and integrated to the kitchen. The pre-existing window frames and the original Imbuia parquet floor were kept, which was revived after its restoration.
The residents and authors of the project wanted the result to be different what they had done before for studio clients, with the intention to create in their home a place to pause and retreat. For this reason, they experimented with materials they had never used before, such as terrazzo and hydraulic tile, and the cabinetry was restricted to the closets and kitchen and bathroom cabinets. All other solutions consist of movable furniture, most of them chosen specially for the new residence as a symbol of a new moment in their lives.
It is around the large 4.50m long solid wood table designed by the architects and custom-made that everything happens: the couple's daily conviviality, who, also in the company of friends and family, eat their meals, cook, write, draw, and paint. The dinner table and the kitchen countertop are united in a single element, and are subtly distinguished by the industrial vintage lamps rhythm and by the white object collection (Nicole Toldi, Heloísa Galvão among others vases) that interrupts the surface length. In the living room, the furniture – not only the armchairs, but also the carpets, must be soft to sit on the ground – was chosen, thrifted and positioned for conversations and readings.
Over the neutral parquet base and the white walls and doors, points of color were applied to the most important furniture pieces, such as the MP-97 blue sofa and the caramel MP-163 armchair and ottoman by Percival Lafer, the FDC1 brown armchair by Flavio de Carvalho and the green MTF600 chair by Geraldo de Barros. Among several other important pieced are the jacaranda wood rack by Celina Zilberberg, the Spindel vase by Willy Guhl, the auditorium jacaranda wood sitting designed by Sergio Rodrigues for the SESC SP, the Girafa stool by Lina Bo Bardi, Marcelo Suzuki and Marcelo Ferraz, the Mocho stool by Sergio Rodrigues, the Luminator floor lamp by Pietro Chiesa for FontanaArte and the Varetas coat stand and the Folhas buffet table by Leandro Garcia.
