Our project for the Bahia Building seeks to enhance the solemn mansion of 1929, a project by Architect Luiz Signorelli for the Gomes Nogueira family.

The house, today, is compressed by fragmented forms of occupation, harming the reading of its compositional structure of eclectic style and its finishing refinements.

Rua da Bahia, once bucolic and poetic, became a corridor of intense traffic flow, creating an atmosphere of speed and impersonality. With that, the mansion gets lost even more in the hustle and bustle, mingling with other forgotten buildings.

It is up to us, therefore, to reinsert it into the city scene, neutralizing its surroundings and harmonizing the different scales of occupation.

On the north side of the plot, it is proposed to eliminate the side house, which hides important details of the mansion's right facade, replacing it with a large garden square under a generous pilotis, creating a brighter and freer environment.

This new void provides a break for the passerby, in addition to expanding the visibility and framing of the mansion.

On the same side, the entrance to the building, positioned on the side boundary, is marked by the portico from where all the paths and accesses to the new building start.

In the background, the new residential building becomes a neutral frame, developed in two stages:
Up to the final height of the house's ridge, set back 5 meters from the listed property, the basement acquires the function of a backdrop, following the alignments of the eaves and ridge.

Above, retreating from the alignments formed by the original building, the building develops silently through a sequence of horizontal louvers, which subtly refer to the details of the eaves.

On the windows of the facade, serigraphs that allude to the mansion's original railings, work as photovoltaic cells to capture solar energy.

Throughout the design, we sought to use elements and solutions that establish relationships of harmonious proportions with the structuring dimensions of the listed property, articulating vectors of views that value the architectural object in focus.

​

Architecture

Gustavo Penna, Norberto Bambozzi, Laura Penna, Letícia Carneiro, Oded Stahl, Alice Flores, Fernanda Tolentino, Henrique Neves, Raquel de Resende, Eduardo Magalhães, Julia Lins, Bárbara Novais, Ada Penna, Larissa Freire. Interns: Lucas Moreira, Sávio de Oliveira, Gustavo Monteiro.
​

Management and Planning

Rísia Botrel, Isabela Tolentino e Taimara Araújo

Place

Belo Horizonte – Minas Gerais – Brazil

 

photographs

Jomar Bragança