Isay Weinfeld

Lacerda building is located in São Paulo’s Sumarezinho district, in a region that has been experiencing fast transformation fostered by the city’s development plan, due to its closeness to Vila Madalena subway station. There is, therefore, high traffic of pedestrians from the station to the district and vice-versa, which spreads not only around the streets, but through the several alleys and stairways that help transpose the hilly local topography.

When designing the building, we strived to bring that urban setting into the plot, creating a pleasant sloped pathway intersected by gardens, for pedestrians willing to go into the building or simply cross the block from one street to the other, many meters below. Halfway that path, a café invites passers-by for a break, and further ahead lies the reception and access control to the elevators, from which point where circulation gets restricted to tenants and visitors.

The building itself, a 17-story tower 22 by 24 meters across, set alongside the plot’s main delimitations, rests on the base volume (street level) as if it didn’t actually touch the ground. It is at this point of apparent discord and structural tension that the relationship between the scale of the district and the city that engulfs it is made evident.

On the tower, the external finishes vary according to the use of each floor, making it possible to “read” on the façade how the program is organized. The mezzanine, on the 1^st level, is clad in precast concrete panels, with exposed aggregate finishes. Above, levels 2 to 14 are occupied by offices and the façade features a modular pattern alternating aluminum and glass panels, in an order only disrupted by the random placement of wide balconies. Levels 15 and 16 are reserved for duplex residential units, whose façades feature precast concrete panels. The top floor – occupied by a commercial unit with wraparound landscaped terraces – crowns the building in lush greenery.