Project: Paulicéia Apartment
Architecture: Ricardo Abreu Arquitetos
Lead Architect: Ricardo Abreu
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Area: 165 m²
Year: 2021
Photo credits: Renato Navarro
Living at Av. Paulista means – at every sense – living on the highest point of one of the most important cities of Latin America. Within some great iconic landscapes of São Paulo, the busy avenue portrays a contemporary and globalized lifestyle, along both commercial and residential imponent buildings. Among them, the wide windows of Edifício Paulicéia portraits the daily life in such astonishing way. The perspective change of the Avenue from the ground floor to the high level of the apartment allows a unique sight experience, but this is far from being the strongest concept of this project.
Conceived by its owner, the architect Ricardo Abreu explores the modern features of the building. In opposition to the monochromatic and dense view, the apartment amazes the sight by framing the avenue view with a great vegetation variety that composes the design. The highlight is about the inception of more than 50 different sort of plants, such as ferns, philodendros, ficus and succulents. The predominancy of the color green also covers the walls, as long as some fabrics, curtains and furniture.
Throughout the 165m2 of the apartment, the style blend of different artistic movements compounds the project. The neoclassic elements, geometric paintings and the contemporary art work combines different history layers as an analogy to the history of the city. The Boiseries are blended to the apparent pipelines along the ceiling and the walls. The Paulicéia apartment was also designed to be the architect’s office. The other rooms are highlighted with geometric wall painting in strong colors, emphasizing the art work.
The furniture items from the selection are signed by some iconic artists and designers, as the Girafa chair from Lina Bo Bardi, and items from Charles Eames. Some other contemporary pieces are the chairs Sentah from Felipe Protti, the sofa Aga II from Brunno Meireles, and the chair Pantosh from Leonardo Lattavo and Pedro Moog. In the living room, the big folding screen is made in golden metallic structure and bronze mirror that embraces the piano next to the vegetation. Among the art pieces are the sculptures Pranto from the artist Ricardo Teixeira, the print art Espaço 4a Dimensão from the Japanese artist Yataka Toyota, the oil on canvas from Antônio Brasileiro, and Fantasia Sertaneja from the architect and artist Juracy Dórea, beside pictures from the photographer Marcelo Magnani.
