Different times and spaces make up the architecture for the new headquarters of CAU São Paulo.

Given the dense built mass of its context, rich in urbanity and history, the intervention proposes to create a new relationship between the building and the city, with light, winds and its temporalities, through infrastructural reorganization and modernization. The new installations give rise to ruptures, which allow light to enter and the restructuring of its spaces, giving the building a new vitality.

The original facade - a historical record of eclecticism - is the first element that presents itself to the city and the public. The ground floor allows you to enter an internal reception square with high ceilings.

The central body, existing and altered over time, in a free and continuous plan [the cutouts in the slabs of the 6th, 7th and 8th floors were closed] houses the architectural program, allowing total flexibility and alteration of the layout at any time.

The new technical tower designed at the bottom of the lot [enabled by the demolition of the two existing stairs and specific sections of the slabs on all floors] houses the vertical circulations - stairs and elevators - non-binary toilets with universal accessibility and part of the technical installations located in the roof.
The new annex - plenary - appears as a vertical displacement of a new floor, configuring a “void” between the central body of the existing building and the new one.

The new installations give rise to ruptures, which allow light to enter and the restructuring of its spaces, giving the building a new vitality.

Between each of these elements - historic facade, central body, technical tower and annex - the “void” claims its non-space to “release” the different historical times, enabling new urban visuals, light and natural ventilation, at the same time as composing them. with subtle connections through walkways, hollow stairs, living and coexistence spaces.

The specific cuts between the historic structural masonry facade and the central body are structured by frames of metal beams that “tie” the plane of the facade to the ends of the “cut” slabs, they also structure the stairs that interconnect the administrative floors 4, 5, 6 and 7, creating a circulation area for restricted use to employees, on the 8th floor they structure the overhead lighting.

The body of the technical tower in exposed concrete structures the metal balconies.

The metal walkways are designed with metal beams that start from the concrete gable and are received on each floor by metal beams that “finish off” the specific cuts of the slabs on each floor and transfer the weight of the walkways independently to new concrete pillars located at the ends of the boundary walls.

The new suspended annex is structured by frames made up of metal beams and pillars that rise next to the boundary walls and support the weight of the new construction independently, carrying the load through new concrete pillars embedded in the masonry wall – following the logic existing structure of the building – up to new foundations.