AKQA, an international advertising agency ordered from Estúdio Penha a project to create an office with a homelike atmosphere in São Paulo, Brazil. It was a renovation project of a two-story house that should be adapted to the new necessities. The starting point was to preserve part of the existing house but with horizontal and vertical expansion.
On the ground floor are the main areas for clients and on the first floor is the area for 40 members of the staff. The second floor (vertical expansion) holds a green roof and two mezanines (one communicates with the reception area and creates the triple height ceiling).
The patchwork of old iron gates and railings function as brise soleil for the new volums of the house. One of the objectives of the project was to make clear and harmonic the constrast between the old house and the new intervetions.
It was necessary to create a complex net of ducts and pipes for all infrastructure of the house and it was made by leaving it all apparent.
solar panels, gathering of rainwater for reuse and lightning with led lamps were some sustainable solutions adopted for AKQA agency.