ap rino levi reform

The search for building continuities is inevitable when it comes to renovating a Heritage Site of Modern Architecture in the City of São Paulo.

We had only two months to renovate the apartment in the Prudência Building, designed by São Paulo architect Rino Levi in the 1940s. The apartment had already undergone some renovations and now it was necessary to open up a bedroom to the living room and build three bathrooms where there had previously been only one. One of the characteristics of the original design is the compartmentalization of functions in generously scaled spaces. As time goes by, ways of living change and, therefore, many of the renovations that this and other apartments have undergone have been aimed at opening up these spaces by reducing functions.

The need to open one of the bedrooms to the living room follows this sense of transformation and seemed appropriate to us because it would increase ventilation and natural light in the hallway that leads to the bedrooms and kitchen. However, we realized that when opening up spaces of a generous scale, we have to be careful not to let the generosity get out of control and the human scale escape.

Informed by the yellow metalwork closures on the building’s façade, we decided to continue them inside the apartment in order to reconstruct the new spaces. It is through this insertion of a linear architectural element that calibrates the scale, access, intimacy and functions of the built spaces that the renovation project is carried out.