- Area: 8880 ft²
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:Manuel Sá, José Henrique Paiva
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Manufacturers: Deca, Isomass, Knauf, Marcetex, REKA
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Lead Architects: Lucas Augusto Barbosa Durães ; João Pedro Pujoni Facury
Text description provided by the architects. Bordered by the public balcony of the Copan Building - a suspended sidewalk in São Paulo's Historic Center - the project for the New Headquarters of Greenpeace Brazil presents itself as a showcase of the institution to the largest city in Latin America.
Its privileged insertion and architecture invite the inhabitants of the metropolis to enjoy a universally accessible space, with peculiar materiality and unique cultural relevance. Simple and inviting furnishings allow a thorough appropriation of the balcony - an interface between the city and the public space of the new headquarters.
While the Warehouse hosts various forms of the institution’s communicational production - serving, for example, as a stage for open poster workshops - the Flexible and Multipurpose rooms host multiple events - including classes, lectures, meetings, social gatherings, and daily ceremonies. Both are located near the façade to strengthen ties and expand the organization's exchanges with society.
Moving away from a high-class neighborhood to establish the occupation of a space in the city center - in a historic and symbolic building - is a courageous act aligned with a sustainable posture in a broad sense. The abundance of urban infrastructure - both in terms of mobility and its various modalities, and in the provision of services in their multiple expressions - favors the activities of the entity, while it recovers and renews the space. Greenpeace in Copan positions itself as a strong ally in the process of conscious and democratic downtown reoccupation of one of the country's most important cities.
The program is organized in terms of a privacy scale. Starting from the most public to the least, the Warehouse, the Multipurpose Room, the Flexible Room, and the Shared Office are arranged starting from Copan’s balcony, which, with its extremely generous width, is configured as an extension of the sidewalk. Their accesses and functions are independent from the rest of the program, being able to be opened to the public whenever necessary.
The spacious environments, permeated by movable partitions - such as curtains and sliding doors - support various appropriations through their easy reconfiguration. The project's flexibility allows adaptation for uses not yet foreseen, thereby increasing the space's lifespan. Organizing flows around a central infrastructural axis provides greater freedom of appropriation, flexibility in the integration between work environments, and reducing conflicts caused by simultaneous divergent activities.
The project also values the marks of past occupations - exemplified by the maintenance of traces of the old staircase on the upper slab. The aim is to harmonize historical valorization with the demands of contemporary use. Thus, guidelines for a consciously silent architecture are evident, focused primarily on infrastructural interventions, aiming for the necessary robustness of long-term and environmentally responsible occupations.
