HomeArchitecture"Espaço", the urban regeneration project by Piuarch in São Paulo

“Espaço”, the urban regeneration project by Piuarch in São Paulo

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In São Paulo (Brazil), in conjunction with Enel‘s launch of the programme for the digital transformation of the city’s financial and high-tech heart, Piuarch presents the new Espaço project conceived to create new places for meeting and participation that promote the construction of urban social networks.

In the Vila Olimpia neighbourhood of São Paulo Enel will create a digital, smart and sustainable infrastructure, to make energy distribution more efficient; at the same time, as the technological network is built up on avant-garde infrastructure, the social network develops, also, through public space.

Piuarch’s Espaço project was presented in the context of the Enel event as best practice for circular urban spaces: an installation that rethinks and redefines the city, and which represents the meeting point between social and environmental sustainability.

 Espaço grows out of a modular element in recycled plastic that, like a puzzle, can be combined in infinite configurations, customised to specific needs and place: the basic three-dimensional volume can be extruded at different heights to create walk-on surfaces, seats, tables, signage totems, urban vegetable gardens.

The results are coloured spaces of aggregation that invite the community to live residual, urban spaces in participatory fashion, born with a strong urban and cultural identity, based on the study and interpretation of local historical, social and artistic factors.

The geometric, repeatable and characteristic form of the volumes recalls Mirthes dos Santos Pinto’s graphic design for the pavements of the city, while the concrete art of Helio Oiticica and Alfredo Volpi’s study contributed to the inspiration and definition of the geometries and colours.

Versatile and modular, Espaço was designed by Piuarch (together with Duda Mitidiero and with the contribution of Cornelius Gavril for the Landscape Design part) with the aim of stimulating grassroots urban regeneration and community growth: a project whose social and educational value can be replicated in different parts of the city, creating a widespread system tailored to local needs.

Following this presentation, the future might see the concept being applied on a large scale, contextual to the digitalisation of the megalopolis, with a view to creating a network of technological, green and play points aimed at developing the local community’s quality of life.

Photography is by Massimo Failutti.