Brazilian Renovation Innovation

by Mark Robins | July 1, 2021 12:00 am

“The reused heritage building houses a tropical garden and since the building started ruining when Manaus started its industrial district (late 1960s), we wanted to use an industrial look while maintaining its ruin aspect,” Troost says. “[It has] an industrial steel structure within its consolidated ruins. The final result is a mix of ruin, industrial and natural/vegetal that points at a new way of dealing with heritage buildings.”

STEEL STRUCTURE

Referred to as a four columns tower built in an empty shell, the prefabricated steel structural concept’s simplicity helped to build the Cassina Innovation House in only seven months during the pandemic. “During the work, the prefabrication system allowed for very few workers on-site, allowing for social distancing from COVID-19 in hard-hit Manaus,” Troost says. “Moreover, the steel structure allows for large eaves in all directions to provide perfect sunshading; industrial steel staircase floors allow for light and rains for the inner tropical garden.”

Troost says steel was chosen for the project for not only for its “prefabrication and its perfection in terms of alignments, but also because of the industrial look we wanted to give to an Innovation House nested in a colonial building that [was] ruined. We thought it would symbolize a bold re-birth.”

The new structural system stands as independent as possible from the outer shell in order not to overload the outer shell built 125 years ago only from bricks and mortar. Due to fireproof regulations, Troost explains the building’s height did require an external staircase as the safest solution. “The question of how to build an external staircase within an existing built envelope was therefore one of the starting points that tented toward the inner tropical garden solution. And, to turn this challenge into a differential for the project, the external staircase turned into a tropical garden, designed as a natural environment feature able to filter pollution, to produce oxygen, to reduce noise and temperature, but also to attract urban natural wildlife, which is already happening: frogs and birds already have nested in the greenery inside the building.”

The stairwell allows for direct social interactions between users crossing over the tropical garden at different levels. The exuberant garden behind the main façade creates its very own microclimate.

Anyone accessing the building via the walkway crossing the void over the garden is reminded of Manaus’ intrinsic reason for existence: the Amazon rainforest. “This lush tropical garden, associated with glass, transparencies and reflections of the industrial staircase, mixes Cassina’s ruin history with the future of the Innovation House in a space associated with technology, virtuality and contemporaneity,” Troost says.

The building has been carefully designed to minimize energy use by using passive energy strategies. In terms of passive sustainability, in addition to cross ventilation in all floors due to the reduced width of the building by inserting the garden, the Cassina features a ventilated void between the roof slab and the restaurant’s ceiling, in addition to large eaves in all directions, ensuring a thermally comfortable environment. The east façade, exposed to the rising sun, has received contemporary frames with tempered glass fins to create a ventilated double-skin façade keeping the heat out.

The judges were very impressed with the renovation of the 125-year-old building. Stephen Van Dyck, AIA, LEED AP, partner, LMN Architects, Seattle, said, “This project is incredible. It’s awesome. I loved it. It would have been hard to do a lot of this without metal.”

Brent Schipper, AIA, LEED AP, principal, ASK Studio, Des Moines, Iowa, said, “It’s such a beautiful building. You have this masonry building that had to be saved by metal.” Tara Williams, AIA, associate architect, ASD | SKY, Tampa, Fla., said, “When I saw it, I thought, ‘this is amazing.’ The outside looks perfect.”

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/brazilian-renovation-innovation/

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