Urban Breach

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Rio de Janeiro

Project idea

The numerous artistic interventions in the form of street art stand out in the surroundings of the terrain. It’s strength in the urban context, which emerges as an alternative expression for people in the city, caught our attention. Hence, we adopt graffiti as an initial idea, studying its form and the way it integrates with the city, in order to create a project proposal.
The first impression we had when we arrived at the site was to encounter a monotonous and emotionless parking lot, an extremely functional space in the middle of a rather busy place. The walls of the surrounding buildings and the walls around the site itself have various graffiti of varying sizes and shapes, which arise spontaneously as artistic expressions that represent a cry, a resistance, something colorful and full of life that appears in contrast to the cold gray of the walls and of the asphalt.
We then began to analyze how other focuses of artistic expression germinated around the terrain and how they communicate. Mapping all the places where there were graffiti near the ground, we created a network of interconnections between them, in which the terrain would be the center. Our terrain functions as a catalyst for these artistic movements that took place around us, a meeting space for all of them in one spot. An art gallery to interact with other buildings, starting point of development of the whole program.
The gallery was developed as a volume of form inspired by the graffiti itself, while the other volume contrasts with the organic aspect of the gallery, being a simple and orthogonal shape that serves for commercial, housing and work uses. The connection between the two volumes would be a key point, in which it would symbolize the force that graphite has in the urban environment and how it strengthens it.

Project description

Project Description
Graffiti takes advantage of public spaces and creates a language of communication through different forms and styles, interfering in the city. The graffiti finds free spaces within the walls and urban walls and germinates in its breaches, like a molt that grows in the crack of the asphalt. This is the starting point of the project.
A particular graffiti caught a lot of attention on the wall, a very organic form found facing Av. Heitor Beltrão. This graffiti served as base for the design, the volumetric and spatial structure of the art gallery.
The shape of the gallery consists of three distinct volumes that were modeled according to the graffiti. The larger volume, the membrane, is central to the other two that intersect and are smaller. At the intersections, openings were created for circulation within the membrane. Smaller volumes were made of a material (wood) other than the concrete membrane. Because they were completely parameterized, they were sliced concentrically creating blades on the vertical and horizontal axis. These blades were made with precise grooves, to be able to be accommodated in each other and represent their initial shape. This difference in materiality and confection allowed a greater prominence for these other two volumes, in the form of a grid, bringing greater evidence for the three distinct volumes.
The landscaping was based on a diagram resulting from the mapping of graffiti around the terrain. We understand that graphite, spontaneously, breaks and interferes with the city. We wanted to give strength to the feeling of rupture of graffiti, to show the consequence of this, and to bring into the project. With this, we created this cut in the middle of the ground, between the gallery and the building, and subdivided it to give a cracking texture. It is from this symbolic rupture that the ideas arise, that pulsate and transform into artistic expressions. This pulsation seen in the diagram is also found in the design by circular forms, either on the sidewalks or in the vegetation, and is what integrates all the landscaping. Benches, which are also parametrized forms and organized as if they were the materialization of this pulsation, emerge between the lines of the pulses.
The shape of the building adjacent to the gallery fulfills the role of a support in a wide sense, both enhancing the organic form of the gallery and in the greeting aspects. The strength of the form in this case is given by the complete and singular distinction between forms. That building have two functions in the project, the first is more evident is that of a building, which contains the entire program of the project, the other that not far in importance is that through its formal design gives strength and supports the uniqueness of its attached volume (the art gallery). Another important point of the building in question is the interaction of its facade with the gallery. The facade is made of ribs in wavy forms, which vary in size and intensity as they approach the touch area between the building and the gallery. This encounter between the two and this variation in form symbolizes how graphite has strength and can change the urban environment. That being said, there were still issues concerning technical aspects such as thermal comfort and capitation of prevailing winds, which were solved by the direction in which the project's implantation was conceived.

Technical information

Architectural Plans
Model Images
Rendered Images
Project Discription and Idea
Parametric Facade diagram
Plumbing Plans
Landscape Plans and details
Structural Plans

Co-authors

Thiers Freire da Nobrega, Leonardo José Ribeiro