Post-Industrial Shine Under Brazilian Sun by Guto Requena

Fresh and innovative, the Harmonia Apartment by Guto Requena, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, encapsulates everything one imagines and adores about Brazil. The country’s explosive urban development, grounded in a post-industrial economic boom, shines through with the use of exposed concrete—for the spiraling interior staircase, the walls and the ceiling. The kitchen tiling, white and small, has a distinctively vintage feel to it, while colorful eye-poppers are all over the place: the ingeniously shaped stool on the balcony, the Roy Lichtenstein print in the work area, the desk lamp made out of sneakers (!) and the tapestry with a textual intervention in the day area.

By comparison, the bedroom stands out as particularly restrained and sober, from a design standpoint, but there is surprise confined within that space as well. The room is delimitated from the living room via a set of mahogany-black swing doors, which act as shields for the privacy of the apartment’s owners’ rest. Another moot point of creativity is the use of space for storage, with upcycled plastic crates and a modular cardboard bench. There is a mall toilet (!) inside the apartment, and the use of space is also spectacularly clever. The two-story apartment features two open terraces on the upper floor, with views to the great urban outdoors and a canopy, for shade under the torrid Brazilian sun.

(Source: GutoRequena.com.br)