Vitra by Pininfarina

History

The Vitra by Pininfarina — also known as Vitra Residence — is the second Pininfarinai signature in Balneário Camboriúi, the Turin house that designs Ferraris and made Brazil its leading residential market in the world. The construction is by Pasqualotto & GTi, the local builder and developer that would also later sign, taller still, the Yachthouse by Pininfarinai.

Proposed in 2014, with construction starting in 2017, the building was completed in 2025 — a date confirmed by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), which records the tower at 211.5 metres in height.

• Concept: a residential tower of Italian design, with Pininfarina’s aerodynamic vocabulary applied to a slender beachfront silhouette.
• Trivia: the CTBUH ranks the Vitra as the 6th tallest building in Balneário Camboriú and the 6th in Brazil on its list, and the 11th in South America. The architectural project is by Pininfarina in co-authorship with the local firm LDD Arquitetura.
• Not to be confused with: this is the Vitra in Balneário Camboriúi, SC, built by Pasqualotto & GTi with architecture by Pininfarinai. There is a second building with the same name, Vitra Itaimi, in Itaim Bibii, São Paulo, built by JHSFi with architecture by Daniel Libeskindi: they are homonyms, with no relation to each other — different city, developer and architect.

Architecture and aesthetics

Pininfarinai‘s signature shows in the tower’s modelling: fluid lines and a façade sculpted in curves, the same “dynamism” the Turin house carries from automotive design into architecture. Local execution of the project fell to the firm LDD Arquitetura, and the structure is entirely reinforced concrete, according to the CTBUH. The tower has roughly 35,720 m² of built area, spread across 62 floors.

The slender verticality follows the same regulatory logic that shaped the entire Balneário Camboriú waterfront: the front setback grows with height — the shading cone, calculated by angle from the street axis —, additional buildable potential is purchased through onerous grants, and the cap on units per plot share pushes the product toward few, large-footprint apartments. Hence a 62-floor tower with only 100 apartments.

Aesthetics and scarcity

Technical specifications

• Tower and units: single residential tower of 62 floors above ground and 1 basement level, with 100 apartments.
• Height: 211.5 metres, confirmed by the CTBUH.
• Areas: units of 171 to 342 m² of private area.
• Structural highlights: entirely reinforced-concrete structure · roughly 35,720 m² of built area in the tower (Tower GFA, CTBUH).
• Authorship: architectural project by Pininfarinai with the local firm LDD Arquitetura · development and construction by Pasqualotto & GTi.
• Registry and parameters: building condominium in Balneário Camboriúi, on Rua 3450, no. 37 · official postal neighbourhood: Centro, postcode 88330-260 · registry jurisdiction of Balneário Camboriú.

Location and surroundings

Points of interest · distances in metres

Balneário Camboriú: the address

Balneário Camboriúi is not a neighbourhood: it is the Santa Catarina city that turned verticalisation into an economic project and ended up with the most recognisable silhouette on the Brazilian coastline — a continuous wall of towers facing a crescent-moon beach. The city is, according to the CTBUH, the one with the most skyscrapers of 150 metres or more in South America, and it became the address where international designer-branded architecture stopped being the exception and became the standard. It is in this environment that Pininfarina signs not one, but two towers — the Vitra and, taller, the Yachthouse. Density has a price: the wall of towers shades the sand strip in the late afternoon, and what can be built along the front is a permanent political issue in the city.