Signature · Architecture · São Paulo
Arqdonini
Two architects who refuse off-the-shelf solutions — and a building in the Jardins whose curved cantilevered balcony has practically vanished from the market's repertoire.
Who it is
Arqdonini Arquitetos Associados was founded in 1992 by Marco Donini, who graduated in 1980. Francisco Zelesnikar joined in 1994, fresh out of graduation, and soon became a partner. The duo has run the firm ever since, based on Rua Groenlândia, in Jardim América, working on residential and commercial buildings, retail, interiors and stage design — in Brazil and abroad.
The house describes itself as a laboratory of experiments and also treats architecture as a position of citizenship: working across the widest possible variety of situations is a declared trait of the pair, who develop refined solutions for the often chaotic paths of urban growth.
Language
- Style: an explicit refusal of the mass-production of solutions. The firm advocates the need for organisation while at the same time refusing to repeat the same design concept from one project to the next — each work is treated as its own case.
- Constructive signature: a willingness to pay the technical price of the design. In Palazzo Ducale, the curved cantilevered balconies were executed in a solid slab, without an edge beam — an expensive solution that has practically disappeared from the real estate market — and the façade cladding is a mosaic of transparent tiles developed specially for that building. No one repeats the cladding because it does not exist in any catalogue.
- Materials: travertine and ceramic tile on the façade; volume read through the balcony’s shadow, not through ornament.
- Awards: first place in the 2007 Prêmio Planeta Casa, architectural project category, for environmental relevance and clean-construction synthesis (Editora Abril).
Landmark works
- Palazzo Ducale, in Jardim Paulista — designed between 1997 and 2001 for SKR, on the last lot of Rua Peixoto Gomide, with a view of Ibirapuera protected by the geography.
- A residential studio-apartment building and Edifício Vila Madalena, São Paulo.
- A beach house in Santiago.
- Drosophyla Bar, São Paulo.
