Cocooned in Calm: An Apartment in São Paulo by André Braz.

Bringing an old home into the present, for better or worse, means undoing a bit of the past. Or, if you’re architect André Braz, a lot of it. As he tells it, his latest project, a soup-to-nuts renovation of a 1970s, 134-square-metre apartment in São Paulo’s Jardim Paulista neighbourhood, was thanks to a stroke of serendipity. “The client contacted the studio as soon as she bought the apartment, so we were able to conduct layout studies during the purchase negotiations,” he shares, noting that the full gut remodel may not have been possible otherwise.

Make no mistake, the home, in its original state, wasn’t in rack and ruin. It featured modern details and rationalist touches, and the facade was enveloped in windows that welcomed the light deep inside. But when it came to calm, it didn’t quite bat a thousand. “The project was thought up with a focus on tranquillity and harmony between spaces,” says André, who opted for natural materials and earthy tones to tranquilise the interior.

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Indeed, the home is entirely a pastiche of freijó carpentry and terracotta-clad railings; exposed beams and pillars with treated concrete surfaces; and floors, benches and walls variously emblazoned with bare cement and bright terrazzo. “We chose to mix different materials,” says André, whose furniture choices included a velvet couch by Casa Ática, a Wishbone chair by Hans J. Wegner, a Girafa chair by Lina Bo Bardi, and a Cesca Chair by Marcel Breuer, in addition to novelties from design studios old and new, including his own. He was equally considered with art, sourcing pieces of Brazilian and Argentinian origin, the latter as a hat-tip to the client’s heritage. Rodrigo Hernandes and Victor Mattina are among the artists on display.

Because the vision was big but the footprint was not, André knocked down all but one of the walls to make room for more possibilities. He wove the balcony around the spaces and reconfigured the rooms, carving out a sprawling area for entertaining, as well as a TV room and office that double as guest rooms.

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And yet, his favourite intervention of all was born from a challenge encountered during demolition. As André puts it: “The client had expressed her desire to connect the internal and external parts of the apartment at the same level. However, the window frames of the dining room and bedroom had an inverted beam that prevented integration. To solve that, we created a bench that undulates through the entire social area and the client’s room, providing visual harmony to the project, enhancing the spatial qualities of the environment, and creating new gathering spaces.”

If he could turn back the clock, André, well… wouldn’t. “There’s nothing I would do differently,” he avers. “In the end, it turned out exactly as I had imagined: a project with the client’s personality, with a little piece of me.”

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[Images courtesy of André Braz. Photography by Evelyn Muller.]