Between Drawing and Word: Getting to Know spbr arquitetos’ Work

Written by Giovana Martino | Translated by Diogo Simões
Published on January 21, 2022

Founded by the architect and professor Angelo Bucci, spbr arquitetos works in different scales of construction of buildings with a distinct and particular language in its works. Its projects are the result of an intense exercise in architectural thinking, combined with the use of drawing as a tool for dialogue between architects and clients.

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In his career, Bucci participated in MMBB, an architecture firm from São Paulo, from 1996 to 2002, when he left to create spbr in 2003. In 2001, he became a professor at the University of São Paulo and over the years has been invited to teach in institutions all over the world, which influenced the firm's way of thinking and designing. spbr is a synthesis between professional practice, represented by drawing, and theoretical knowledge presented by the words of theory.

For Angelo, in a way, “the function of an architect is not to have ideas, but to know how to build things”. For him, the ideas that exist within people's imagination lack a specificity that allows them to become solid, and architecture is precisely the discipline that materializes this idea, which unites desire with the object. And for that the dialogue from the drawing is fundamental. In the practice of the office, sketches are the communication tool between the architects within the office, and it is from them that the project is developed, in the eyes and care of everyone. Its projects value structural design, constructability and economic viability and, above all, the understanding of the city as a field of architectural works.

Currently, spbr also counts in its associated body two architects, Victor Próspero and Lucas Rocha, and over its 18 years it has won a series of national and international awards such as the honorable mention at the V Bienal Internacional de Arquitetura de São Paulo, the second place in the LafargeHolcim Prize for Sustainable Architecture in Latin America, a finalist for the Mies Crown Hall America's Prize in 2014/15, and also the APCA (São Paulo Association of Art Critics) Prize in 2020. Its projects respect the legacy of the past while seeking a certain boldness for the future. Here are ten projects from the office: