Brazilian developer Somauma has converted three floors in the derelict Virginia Building in downtown São Paulo into an installation that incorporates the work of more than a hundred artists and designers for Design Week São Paulo.

The exhibition, called O Tempo das Graças, is part of a development project that seeks to bring art and cultural activities into the downtown core of Brazil’s most populous city, which has been neglected for decades.

Three floors near the top of the mid-century structure have been filled with a variety of installations as well as gathering spaces such as a fully functional cafe.

Curator Cláudio Magalhães told Dezeen that the project was put together around the concept of affection towards spaces.

“The whole idea of an exhibition is to create ‘affection at work’,” said Magalhães through an interpreter.

“The process is richer than the art itself.”

According to Design Week São Paulo (DWSP) founder Lauro Andrade, the art project was meant to connect real estate interests with designers in order to regenerate the cultural production of the area as the building is retrofitted to become an apartment block.

References to regeneration can be seen in many aspects of the installations, with art and design filling the literal cracks in the building.

Many of the installations also played with themes of degradation, with found objects and refuse arranged in piles on the floor.

One such installation, called Fissura, was done in a bathroom by local studios Ponto Rima and Marina Fiuka. The holes in the room and the bathtubs were stuffed with translucent red plastic, while a series of mobiles hang from the ceiling.

Designer Bruno Romi also played with the degradation of the building by filling the fissures in the walls with strands of lights and hanging candles from the ceilings.

One of the largest installations was carried out by local studios Ruína and Coletivo Avuá, where a number of rooms were filled with figures and objects wrapped in masking tape.

Curator Magalhães and artist Nana Mendes da Rocha also created pieces for the exhibition.

The ground floor of the building has a shop and cafe that will remain after the installation is completed.

Originally created in 1951 by architect José Augusto Bellucci, the Virginia Building was commissioned by the Matarazzo family, known for its industrial conglomerates and building projects during the mid-20th century in São Paulo.

A spokesperson for Somauma added that it was a shame that when the business cores move, older neighbourhoods are neglected, so the company chose to work with designers to come up with ways to “change the situation downtown”.

“Our job is not easy,” Andrade told Dezeen during a tour of the site, “because of crime and people not wanting to come to the downtown region.”

Andrade said that he hopes the projects and development will show a “material legacy of design week” that lasts long after the installation is torn down as the building becomes residential once again.

Design Week São Paulo incorporates 115 locations all over the city and will run from 11 to 17 March. For more events, talks and showcases in architecture and design, visit Dezeen’s Event Guide.  

The photography is by Mathews Montalvão.

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Metal cladding and a new top floor are among the modifications to the stone-clad 1950s home of Harvard‘s Lewis International Law Center, which has been overhauled by US studio Deborah Berke Partners.

Built in 1957, the facility is part of the Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The project entailed enlarging the rectangular building, modifying the stone-clad facades and reconfiguring the interior.

“The revamped center has become a porous, open connector at the heart of the Law School campus,” the team said.

The original building was designed in a modernist style by the Boston office of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson & Abbott – the firm started in 1870s by noted American architect Henry Hobson Richardson.

Functioning as a library, the 38,00-square-foot (3,530-square-metre) building held book stacks, along with a small amount of classroom and administrative space.

New York-based Deborah Berke Partners was tapped to design an update that met the centre’s contemporary needs, which included more meeting rooms and social spaces.

“The original modernist structure became outmoded with the changing needs of libraries and law pedagogy alike,” said the firm.

“As the teaching of law has shifted its focus to diverse modes of social interchange, rather than on traditions handed down from generation to generation, the spatial needs of law schools has evolved.”

To create more space, the architects added a level to the top of the building and a boxy volume on the western elevation.

The building now has four floors above grade and two below, encompassing a total of 50,500 square feet (4,692 square metres). The top level features a terrace.

For the facades, the team cleaned up the original limestone cladding and wrapped the extensions in metal panels. Large stretches of glass bring in daylight and create a welcoming appearance.

“The building’s formerly opaque stone walls were carefully and selectively removed to allow light in,” the firm said.

“Metal and glass additions complement the original limestone building, and create a tuned coherence between old and new,” the studio added.

On the western facade, which looks toward a busy thoroughfare, the team created a more pronounced front entrance. The eastern facade, which faces the campus, was also made more inviting.

Within the facility, the team re-conceived the layout and carved out openings, such as a central lightwell in the upper two levels.

“Several sections of floor were removed to create interlocking spaces that foster collaboration, learning and co-working,” the team said.

“These multi-level openings allow natural light to flow into the core of the building and enable new vertical adjacencies.”

The facility offers an array of spaces for meeting, studying, socializing, learning and working. It also holds a dedicated “laboratory” for the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society – a research centre focused on law and cyberspace.

Interior finishes include oak wall panelling and terrazzo flooring. Furniture in shades of purple, yellow and orange were inspired by the building’s mid-century roots and help enliven the atmosphere.

“An exuberant interior colour palette and eclectic furnishings set off the building’s elegant geometry and underscore the sociability of its spaces,” the team said.

The architects noted that much of the original building was saved — up to 80 per cent, based on their estimates. This has resulted in a “40 per cent reduction in embodied carbon emissions” when compared to the construction of a new building with standard materials, according to the studio.

“In all, the design reused the bones of the original structure to extraordinary effect – including the concrete foundation, steel-framed structure and stone envelope,” the team said.

The studio added that the centre’s renovation was about much more than updating an aging structure, saying it was about creating a facility that “holistically meets today’s social dynamics in law education”.

Architect Deborah Berke, who serves as dean at the Yale School of Architecture, founded her eponymous studio in 1982.

The firm’s projects include the renovation and expansion of Victorian-era townhouses at the University of Pennsylvania, and the conversion of a late 19th-century mental asylum into a boutique hotel.

The photography is by Chris Cooper.

Project credits:

Architect and interior designer: Deborah Berke Partners
Design team: Ameet Hiremath (project lead), Caroline Wharton Ewing (interior design lead), Deborah Berke (collaborating partner), Brendan Lee (project manager), Elizabeth Chadkin (project Manager, interior design)
Owners’ representative and project management: CSL Consulting
Structural engineer and envelope consultant: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger
MEP/FP engineer: Altieri Sebor Wieber
Sustainability consultant: Atelier Ten
Landscape architect: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
Civil engineer: Nitsch Engineering
Geotechnical consultant: Haley & Aldrich
Lighting designer: One Lux
IT, AV and security consultant: Cerami
Code consultant: R.W. Sullivan
Signage designer: AFreeman

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Dezeen School Shows: students and faculty members from VCUarts Qatar have created a series of installations called Language-as-Machine that explore the concept of language.

The installations are currently on show at VCUarts Qatar’s campus in Doha, and examine language-based communication across historical time periods, mediums and cultures.

The pieces were made using a spectrum of different methods, from using contemporary mediums like LED lighting, computer programs, 3D printing and digital technology to employing more traditional materials like sand, wood and fabric.

VCUarts Qatar

Institution: VCUarts Qatar
Collaborators: xLab: Mohammad Suleiman, Haithem El Hammali, Levi Hammett, Hind Al Saad, Basma Hamdy, Fatima Abbas, Fatima Al Dosari, Giovanni Innella, Hala Amer, Joshua Rodenberg, Lana Abou Selo, Martin Juras, Maryam Al-Homaid, Michael Hersrud, Rab McClure, Roudah Al Sheeb, Saga Elkabbash, Sara Al-Afifi, Sara Khalid, Selma Fejzullaj and Shima Aeinehdar
Organisers: The Gallery at VCUarts Qatar: Meera Badran
Exhibition design: Levi Hammett, Hind Al Saad and Meera Badran
Production assistance: Joshua Bell, Lana Abou Selo, Rogsh Garcia, Humyra Najdam, Jood Elbeshti and Hagar Allam

School statement:

“Ever-evolving, language stores the history of our collective past, holds our memories, allows us to articulate our thought and preserves a foundation of knowledge that allows us to collaboratively build toward the future.

“Language is a signal from the past.

“What might have happened if language had evolved differently? What graphic encodings could be speculated, given a different set of historical and contextual circumstances?

“What were the forces that propagated some language encodings, while consuming others? What insights can be uncovered as we navigate the historical paths and landmarks that chart the current shapes of our language?

“Language is a map.

“This exhibition presents a collection of creative research and artistic expression that explores language as a machine.

“A machine that compresses, records and transmits a collective cultural knowledge. A machine of many operators servicing many objectives. A machine that labours, degrades and is repaired and upgraded.

“A machine that calculates and predicts. A machine that remembers and forgets.

“Language is a machine.

“Language-as-Machine was organised by The Gallery at VCUarts Qatar, commissioning xLab, a research lab at the university, to produce and exhibit their research and practice.”

Future Memories by Giovanni Innella, Hala Amer and Saga Elkabbash

“Future Memories is a writing device that uses sand as a recording medium and a metal sphere as a writing tool.

“This installation refers to the habit of writing sentences on beaches, where words are engraved on the sandy surface yet quickly disappear thanks to the sea or weather.

“Event prediction is the capability to estimate the possibility that some event may occur in the future – however, often these predictions are delivered as numeric chances that an event will occur again.

“Future Memories transforms that somewhat cold and impersonal information into personal and intimate sentences that describe mundane or exceptional events and their emotional impact on our daily lives.

“Slowly delivered on sand by a seemingly invisible force, the forecasts make it look like our lives have already been lived, while we simply wait for things to happen.”

Designers and collaborators: Giovanni Innella, Hala Amer and Saga Elkabbash
Materials: sand, metal, aluminium and acrylic

Sacred Silence by Basma Hamdy, Selma Fejzullaj, Shima Aeinehdar and Levi Hammett

“Sacred Silence explores the letter ‘nun’ (ن) as a seed that grows into ‘kun’ (be) and the trilateral root ‘sakan’ (home/live) and finally manifests into ‘sukoon’ (stillness/bliss/quiet).

“The letter nun is the 14th letter of the Arabic alphabet, marking the midpoint of the 28 letters.

“Nun, in its isolated form, opens Surat-al-Qalam in the Quran, making it one of Islam’s most spiritually significant letters.

“It is reversible in spelling and symmetrical in shape and its circular bowl signifies the upper and lower worlds – the earth and cosmos.

“It also represents a vessel or an ark with the diacritic dot signifying the seed of immortality.

“In Sacred Silence, the concepts of reflection and reversibility are explored to signify the dance between an internal spirituality and an external stillness.

“The piece is composed of hundreds of LED bulbs that evoke the fractal multiplicity and repetition of nature, encompassing a spectrum from seeds to stars.”

Designers and collaborators: Basma Hamdy, Selma Fejzullaj, Shima Aeinehdar and Levi Hammett
Materials: LED matrix and acrylic

Self(Encoded) by Martin Juras, Hind Al Saad and Levi Hammett

“Self(Encoded) allows the viewer to enter a recursive conversation with a machine.

“Your facial features feed the loop with new data, reflected back as a fragmented array of frames, revealing how the machine processes incoming information through different layers of encoding.

“In the same way our brain filters what we see and only remembers what it deems important, the machine compresses visual information, disregarding data redundancy in a dogmatic pursuit of efficiency.

“Self(Encoded) exposes the data used by machines, showing layers of resolution and levels of recognition in pixel form.”

Designers and collaborators: Martin Juras, Hind Al Saad and Levi Hammett
Materials: machine vision camera, screens and bespoke software

Youth of the Future by Michael Hersrud, Roudah Al Sheeb, and Fatima Al Dosari

“This mixtape consists of 50 opening song tracks from cartoons and anime originating in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

“The songs – mostly from French, English and Japanese programming – have been dubbed into Arabic with musical influences from the region.

“Many of the tracks derive from the company Spacetoon, a pan-Arab free-to-air television channel specialising in children’s programmes in the early 2000s.

“The broadcasted shows ‘educated, nurtured and instilled values’ for an entire generation of children growing up in the 1990s onwards, at times referring to them as ‘the youth of the future’.

“The tracks on this mixtape were extracted from various online resources, including footage from vintage VHS tapes that were been reposted on YouTube by enthusiasts.

“This playful collection of songs has been curated by Roudah Alsheeb with assistance from Fatima Al Dosari, digitally composed and edited by Michael Hersrud and produced by Sonic Jeel.”

Designers and collaborators: Michael Hersrud, Roudah Al Sheeb, and Fatima Al Dosari
Materials: cassette tapes, cases, and player, RISO printed inserts and both holographic and glow-in-the-dark stickers

Computed Language by Levi Hammett, Hind Al Saad and Sara Al-Afifi

“This collection of posters begins a research effort to survey language developments notable within the history of computing.

“The details of computational technology can be obscured by its innate complexity and domain specificity, leaving important innovations missed by those of us outside the particular fields of expertise.

“This collection features typefaces, technologies and individuals that mark timeline of computational development.

“Each poster celebrates the importance, impact or influence of its individual subject and is presented as an edition of 32 hand-printed pieces.”

Designers and collaborators: Levi Hammett, Hind Al Saad and Sara Al-Afifi
Materials: Silkscreen on paper

Rays of Essence: Arabic and its Alternative Reality by Hind Al Saad, Sara Khalid and Joshua Rodenberg

“Whether spoken or in ink, Arabic letterforms embody intrinsic meanings.

“Each letter, as part of a word, has a nuance based on its contextual placement, creating a binding thread of connotations in every word.

“This project allows viewers to experience these inherent characteristics by twisting a series of knobs, allowing them to interact with the Arabic forms created by a projected laser through five sheer planes.

“One focused laser beam draws the oscillating letterform over and over again.

“It moves at the speed of light, propelling us to imagine an alternative reality for Arabic.”

Designers and collaborators: Hind Al Saad, Sara Khalid and Joshua Rodenberg
Materials: Laser, MIDI controller and sheer fabric

Virga by Rab McClure with MFA students and faculty

“Virga is the outcome of VCUarts Qatar’s MFA in Design Field Study, 2022.

“It is a collection of glowing sculptural forms made from steam-bent wood, 3D-printed connectors, LED lights and tailored fabric.

“The bent wood components that lend each lamp its distinctive form were designed by students and faculty from the MFA in Design program and produced during an immersive workshop with Atelier La Juntana – a teaching and fabrication facility located on the north coast of Spain.

“The project was inspired by virga cloud formations, which are found in hot climates and characterised by trailing streaks of rain that evaporate before reaching the ground.

“The project invites free association, fosters reverie, and inspires imaginative speculation.

“The project’s kinetic installation and interactive lighting were designed and made possible by xLab.”

Designers and collaborators: Rab McClure with MFA students and faculty
Materials: Steam-bent ash, PETG and cotton

Electric Calligraphy by Fatima Abbas, Lana Abou Selo and Levi Hammett

“Electric Calligraphy is a series of anachronistic Arabic typeface designs that attempt to re-examine the evolutionary path of the Arabic script within inherited technological constraints.

“The piece aims to to uncover new pathways for development, adding new perspectives to the contemporary type design discourse.

“These grids explore what contemporary calligraphy might have been had it been more intimate with the electronic revolution – calligraphy that is guided by light and constructed with segments and modules.

“The Names of Allah are usually displayed in intricate calligraphy to reflect the beauty of their meanings.

“Displaying them with light brings forth a new way to honour the names while displaying them in contemporary times, showing how the Names of Allah can be displayed beautifully within technology, without having to mimic traditional calligraphy.”

Designers and collaborators: Fatima Abbas, Lana Abou Selo and Levi Hammett
Materials: LED matrix, acrylic and wood

Becoming by Levi Hammett, Hind Al Saad, Mohammad Nabil Suleiman, Fatima Abbas and Sara Khalid

“Becoming is the latest light installation in a body of work imagining alternative typographic histories by constructing unconventional language display technologies.

“Here, freed from structural conventions pressed by the dominance of Latin scripts, the formal potential of the Arabic language is celebrated.

“Bright, bold, blinking verbs cycle through this hundred-segment display. The series of words takes us to the roots and connotations of the verb ‘to be’.

“Arabic Sarf (Arabic Morphology and Etymology) is the internal assembly of a word by way of patterns of vowelisation and introduction of extra letters, which constitute a template.

“The template provides additional connotations ‘the bolder the template, the heavier the meaning’.

“As the title suggests, ‘Istif’aal’ – which translates to ‘becoming’ – is a dynamic verb form of six Arabic letters, which means, literally and figuratively, moving from one state to the other.”

Designers and collaborators: Levi Hammett, Hind Al Saad, Mohammad Nabil Suleiman, Fatima Abbas and Sara Khalid
Materials: LED tubes, aluminium, acrylic, PETG, bespoke electronics and software

To view more about VCUarts Qatar, visit its website.

The photography is by Raviv Cohen.

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and VCUarts Qatar. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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With an aesthetic that’s a combination of minimalist and rustic, the Lamplox looks sort of fragile and dynamic in the way it rests on the floor a little too precariously. It casts a wonderful halo across any room, and isn’t just the kind of light that does a singular job of illumination – it’s designed to draw your eyes and attention too, inviting you to examine it, and possibly even play with it.

The rusticness of the Lamplox comes from its lack of order and symmetry. Unlike a tripod that consists of three equally sized sticks connected at one end, the three poles on the Lamplox feel haphazardly arranged, with a ring light resting on them in the most casual manner possible. This deviation from perfection, or ‘defect’ as designer Mehan Merve calls it, is what makes the Lamplox so endearing. It has a human touch, in a lot of ways, adding not just literal warmth to homes, but the kind of warmth also associated with human personalities.

Designer: Mehan Merve

“Light is meaningless, without darkness. And where there is perfection, there is always defect,” says Turkish designer Mehan Merve. “Humanity lives with defects while searching for perfection and this is the reason why we design, compose, and always look for beauty. I disrupt the perfection when I pierce the circle with asymmetric sticks.”

Although there’s a delicateness to the Lamplox’s design, it is, in fact, made rather sturdily. The three poles are screwed together in a way that’s made apparent when you look closely, and one of the poles even cleverly routes the ring light’s cable through a notch in its design. A little bit of perfection in the rustic ‘defect’!

The post Minimalist floor lamp comes with a simple hoop elegantly resting on three sleek poles first appeared on Yanko Design.

Dezeen Showroom: French design brand Petite Friture has released a new cobalt blue colour for its Neotenic table lamp, emphasising its distinctive wiggly silhouette designed by American studio Jumbo.

With its hand-blown glass shade, Neotenic was designed by Jumbo founders Justin Donnelly and Monling Lee to “echo the comfort of childhood memories”.

“The designer’s intention with this collection was to trigger emotion and create a physical bond between the object and its holder,” Petite Friture said.

Its sinuous body is handmade in Portugal using a six-part mould and counter-gravitational dying process, before being powder-coated in either a shiny, smooth or matt finish.

Neontenic’s extended colour range now includes not just vanilla, vermilion and cherry but also the newly added matt blue, reminiscent of the signature ultramarine shade developed by French artist Yves Klein.

The design is also available in two different sizes – a “petit” 26-centimetre version and a huge version that stands half a metre tall.

Product: Neotenic lamp in blue
Designer: Jumbo
Brand: Petite Friture
Contact: contract@petitefriture.com

Dezeen Showroom

Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.

Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.

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