SUBdV / scope

Ceomaba Shops – Sao Paulo

Fresh Performance

Anne Save de Beaurecueil and Franklin Lee, based in both São Paulo and London, are directors of the architecture office SUBdV www.subdv.com, designing and building projects in São Paulo, Brazil, while also teaching at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.

Both their academic and own design work attempt to achieve a certain type of ‘freshness’ through the creating of performative architecture, to mediate both environmental and cultural flows. Following in the lineage of a Brazilian Modern Architecture which transformed European Modernism by creating a new porosity for external environmental forces and ground circulation systems, the goal of the work now is to design mediation systems that allow for an enhanced performance of social and ecological flows, allowing for the constant movement and evolution of forces, to create spaces and organizations that can dynamically adapt to changing climatic and programmatic issues. Movement brings freshness, both as a generative design system, as well as a building performance.

Specifically, the work focuses on architecture and urban projects that employ Environmental Ornamentation to address different cultural agendas within ecological building strategies. For this, the practice uses parametric computation and environmental mediation to create articulated flow management systems. From urban interventions, such as in the design of large cultural complexes, to the design of a smaller scale rehearsal space in São Paulo, the practice uses generative algorithms, iterative associative modeling, and environmental simulations, to structure and calibrate refined transfers of different types of forces, from the movement of people, to the transmittal of wind, sound and light.

The exhibit will highlight, using physical models and printed documentation, three projects that address this theme of fresh performance. The design of the Sonic Studio rehearsal space in São Paulo used geometric algorithms to create a multiple scale and multiple angled sound reflector system, to allow for a diffused sound landscape and flexible instrument arrangements. The design of the Cemoabá Lofts in São Paulo project used agent based associative modeling to have changing sun-angles drive the geometry of a system of iterative sun-shades. Finally, a library in Prague addresses the mediation and negotiation of multiple environmental and urban issues.

Besides currently teaching at the Architectural Association, Anne Save de Beaurecueil and Franklin Lee have also taught at the Pratt Institute Graduate School of Architecture, New York and the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning (GSAPP).

www.subdv.com