Another fresh piece of brazilian architecture thanks to photographer Leonardo Finotti. The store was designed by Marcelo Alvarenga for Coven, a Brazilian brand of knitwear.
The store is based on a refurbishment of an existing 2-story house, wrapped around by a metallic mesh. As you can see on the below photos, the interiors have good lighting, despite the almost hermetic facade.
More photos by Leonardo Finotti and architect’s description after the break:
The store is located in Lourdes, a traditional district in Belo Horizonte, where the finest garment and design stores have concentrated in recent years and occupy converted old buildings.
And this was the case of Coven store. Originally it was a two-storey house, with a wide concrete ledge. The ledge allowed for the construction of a metallic mesh, overlying the existing brickwork.
The idea of a mesh overlapping the building came from the clothes themselves. The grid in the façade suggests the idea of woven thread, the raw material of knitwear, superposing a colorful wall that can be repainted every season.
In the interior, the whole space was remodeled. All of interior walls were suppressed, except the stair – an old and beautiful wood work -, and the walls around it, covered with mirror.
On the ground floor, glazed pergola allows for a filter natural light into the store.
The architect invited two artists – Susana Bastos and Ana Vaz - to create a permanent install in this area, that would suggest a vine, from where garments would spring. In response, they created a white install using thread and left-overs of the materials used in the making of the garments.
Architect: Marcelo Alvarenga Collaborator: Luciana Garcia Contractor: Construtora CRC Project: Dec 2007, Jan 2008 Completion: May 2008 Built area: 160 m²
