Brazilian architect Alan Chu has finished the renovation of a São Paulo apartment, which uses ceramic ventilation bricks to form partitions and furnishings .
The 98-square-metre apartment in the city’s Jardim Paulistano neighbourhood is nicknamed Ap Cobogó, after the hollow ceramic blocks recognized as cobogó that characteristic in the style.
Often employed in buildings across Brazil as ventilation bricks, these blocks have been originally designed in the country in the 1930s and became recognized for their use by architects like Lucio Value and Oscar Niemeyer.
At first crafted only from cement, the blocks have been updated with interpretations in new mediums like glass, clay and ceramic as cobogó became an increasingly well-liked option of constructing materials.
Chu’s selection to include them in this venture came about as a outcome of spending budget restrictions. “There was a cost situation, so I tried to get advantage of it employing low cost construction components as particular components for the undertaking,” he advised Dezeen.
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Utilised as partition walls to separate rooms, the cobogó create uncommon graphics and light results about the apartment.
“When I was contemplating about the proper materials to separate the kitchen from the residing room, with out actually closing it, cobogó crossed my thoughts,” Chu additional. “I have picked this certain model due to its curved feminine feeling.”
The shapes of the blocks are echoed in pieces of furnishings, which have been created specifically for the room and also make use of cobogó.
“Considering that cobogó assumed an important part in the task it inspired me to search for other fundamental construction materials to investigate,” mentioned Chu, who has also made a micro apartment that created use of a compact wooden storage program, and a secret São Paulo tea shop, hidden behind hinged wooden flaps.
The patterns of the blocks also contrast with the use of other components in the apartment, which incorporate burnt ceramic floors and countertops in the bathroom and kitchen.
Iron bars have been used to develop units that support shelves for foods and crockery.
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Plywood has been formed into boxes for holding and presenting clothing in a committed dressing region as nicely as a headboard and side tables in the separate bedroom.
The bathroom is accessed from the closet space by means of a sliding mirrored door, although the toilet is housed in its personal room behind the cobogó partition.
All through the apartment, walls have been stripped back to their original bare brick and painted white to maintain a minimal aesthetic.
“Light in the apartment is excellent, it inspired me to explore the texture of the supplies, generating a comfy, soft and feminine room with Scandinavian touch but even now really Brazilian,” Chu stated.
Cobogó tile blocks have also been used by Brazilian style duo the Campana brothers to type the surface of a terracotta table.
Photography is by Djan Chu.
