T O R C A T O a t e l i e r
Project: Fashion designer studio
Author: José Carlos Nunes de Oliveira, Arq.
Collaborators: Gaia Ferraris, arq.; Juliana Costa, arq.; Juliana Talaia, desg.
Construcotors: Belriba; Area Vidro, Carpintaria Martins; Ancas; AS Publicidade; Pintura - João Silva; Coortinator - OBibelot; Instalações eletricas - DICOEL
Area: 68 sqm
Year: 2016
How to design a work and exhibition studio for a fashion designer?
We found a space drawn. Fully coated in wood. Probably too labelled. Without the necessary quality, neither the best finishing.
Build is not economic.
Demolish neither.
The budget was very restricted.
Maybe the intervention doesn’t pass through a constructive process.
How to transform a space, giving it a personal atmosphere, serene and secure, without any kind of construction?
I remembered Gottfried Semper: the textile origin of the wall.
Cannot building and neither demolishing, we opted for the idea of an honest coating.
A humble textile.
A coating that is not a mask, that doesn't even imitate or hide - a filter.
Textile is the client’s raw material, the hypothesis clearly became a solution.
We crystallized the architecture such as it was, without adding or removing, just sanding the wood and applying a veil. The filter. Around all the perimeter we applyied a translucent curtain. Black.
Black is not a colour, it is a concept. Is always classy – lasts. Is a negative concentration, an annulment.
On the floor a basic, industrial carpet, of the same colour, fixes the idea. We set the atmosphere, the main role would be left to the product.
A fashion atelier is marked by countless profiles that hold pieces of clothing. Usually tubular profiles. These tubes are the chariots, or the front bars or the wide rods that suspend hangers. Moreover, was added the need to suspend the curtains of the dressing room, that filter which involves the space. How? With a tube?
There was still to solve the lighting.
Being continuous was a possibility.
Suddenly a continuous tube solved everything. The same tube that suspends the wraparound curtain serves to suspend the garments and to illuminate the space.
Being discontinuous was a possibility. Points of light in the ceiling illuminate the mirrors. Suspended lights led the charriots. A luminous tape runs on wood. We chose the copper.
We design a console and two tables that organize the rooms. We chose some chairs. We painted the remaining walls.
The rest of work are complexities that cause us irritation and that one shouldn’t remind…
