This Project is the result of a national architectural competition for FIRJAN (Rio de Janeiro Industry Federation) and was awarded second prize. It is a cultural and administrative facility for the institution in the traditional and historical neighbourhood of Botafogo, Rio de janeiro, beside a pre-existing building protected by the gorvenment’s Heritage council.
The two fundamental concepts were context and sustainability. We designd na “U” shaped volume around existing trees and aligned one of its facades to the adjacente historical building with is grey pitched roof. We took inspiration from the old roof to generate our new envelope. We distorted and folded this existing archetipycal roof to acquire industrial shed-like aesthetics. This could be achieved with the use of stainlees steel meshes, glass and parts of green roof.
All the envelope was conceived as a mean to mitigate heat gain from the sun and decrease to a minimum the necessity of energy consumption for HVAC. Some facades has a beige stone cladding similar to what is found in the old protected building. Solid bricks from a dismantled 19 th century decayed structure are reutulized in the new design reinforces links with the past.
There are corporative spaces for events with bar and a restaurant on the top floor right over a theatre that overlooks the old building through na acoustic glass facade. The second and third levels contain mainly classroms. At ground level there are many public spaces such as mediateche, exhibition rooms and an auditoriom that can be reversed into a relax area. At the roof top there is a belvedere immersed in greenery that overlooks the statue of Christ the redeemer in the distance.
