The expansion of the Kafruni & Keller law firm transforms two adjacent office units into an integrated workplace, accommodating different ways of working, meeting, receiving clients and spending time throughout the workday.
Located in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, the firm initially occupied Unit 402 and later incorporated Unit 401. The expansion provided an opportunity to reorganize the layout around the working dynamics of the Labor Law and Social Security teams, whose routines combine individual and collaborative tasks, meetings, hearings and client consultations.
Unit 401 now accommodates the Social Security team in a shared workspace organized around a central workstation. The integration of the two units made it possible to introduce dedicated rooms for meetings, client consultations and hearings, reducing the overlap between activities and providing environments suited to different levels of concentration and interaction. Unit 402 was reorganized to meet the specific needs of the Labor Law team, preserving the existing individual offices and shared work areas.
Privacy was approached as a variable condition. Glass partitions maintain visual connections between rooms and allow natural light to reach interior areas, while blinds provide control over visual exposure according to the activity taking place.
The shared workstations were arranged to keep circulation paths along the façades and preserve views of the surrounding landscape. Along the windows, a continuous bench incorporates lockers and provides an alternative setting for reading, phone calls or taking a break.
The reception marks the transition between the entrance and the work areas. Its design combines curved forms, lighting and materiality to create a welcoming arrival experience, particularly important in a law firm where some consultations involve sensitive personal circumstances. The firm's signature blue appears in the furniture and becomes a defining feature of the reception through a partition composed of open modules inspired by the geometry of the company’s logo. The element filters views, allows light to pass through and integrates the firm’s identity into the architecture itself.
The existing parquet flooring was extended into Unit 401, establishing material continuity between the two newly integrated areas. Acoustic absorption and sound reflection control were addressed primarily through the ceiling design, improving the acoustic conditions of the workspaces and meeting rooms. Lighting differentiates the atmosphere according to use through distinct color temperatures: 4000K in areas primarily dedicated to work and 3000K in spaces intended for gathering, welcoming and taking breaks.
The pantry adopts a more informal arrangement, providing a setting for meals, encounters and temporary breaks from the shared workstations. The renovation thus expands the range of available spatial experiences while preserving the everyday logic of work.
By integrating the two units, the project turns the expansion into an opportunity for spatial reorganization. The architecture preserves existing qualities, responds to the teams’ different needs and introduces new possibilities for use, bringing concentration, collaboration, privacy and moments of pause together within a cohesive spatial experience.
