Casa Brasileira Itaim

History

The first joint project by Lucio Engenhariai and Omar Maksoud, with architecture by Pablo Slemensoni, Casa Brasileira Itaim was conceived as a landmark that redefines the high-end apartment: the declared ambition was not to be one more good address in Itaim Bibii, but a unique and unrepeatable icon — a building that could be recognised from afar and could not be repeated on the next block.

• Concept: the building suspended over a tropical garden, in pursuit of an iconic signature.
• Curiosities: the 19 metres of elevation above the garden are the project’s great image, extremely rare in the city.

Architecture and aesthetics

The gesture is a single one and reads from the pavement: the building does not touch the ground. Pablo Slemensoni‘s tower floats nineteen metres above the ground, and what lies beneath is neither a plinth nor a visible car park, but a tropical garden on a plot of almost four thousand square metres. Raising the volume to that height solves, at a stroke, three things that are usually treated separately: privacy on the lower floors, a view from the very lowest floor upward, and the return of the ground floor to the landscape — a prow raised over the greenery of Itaimi. The common areas sit above this garden, not beneath the tower, and two apartments per floor keep the density low across the seventeen storeys. Interiors and furniture by Jader Almeidai, who also signs the pieces in the common areas, and landscaping by Cenárioi.

Aesthetics and scarcity

• Aesthetics: contemporary and iconic, marked by the suspended volume and the tropical garden.

Technical specifications

• Towers and units: single tower, 17 storeys, 2 apartments per floor, 36 units (34 standard and 2 duplex). Plot of 3,940 m².
• Sizes: 229 m² and 293 or 315 m² in the standard units; duplex penthouses of 417 and 542 m².
• Parking: 4 to 8 spaces, with a private storage unit.
• Structural highlights: the floor raised above the garden and the furniture signed by Jader Almeida in the common areas.
• Registration and parameters: plot 3,941 m² · 1 tower · 17 storeys · 2 units per floor · 36 units (34 standard, 2 duplex) · private areas of 229, 293/315 m² (standard) and 417 and 542 m² (duplex) · 4 to 8 parking spaces · delivered 2021 · registration jurisdiction 4º Registro de Imóveis de São Pauloi.

Leisure and facilities

• Common areas above the tropical garden

Location and surroundings

Points of interest · distances in metres

Itaim Bibi: the address

Two names for the same address

The plot sits on the border between Itaim Bibi and Jardim Paulistano, and both names are legitimate. The postcode registers Jardim Paulistano; the high-end market treats the address as Itaim Bibi. This entry adopts the name in common use and keeps the other for anyone searching by it.

Rua Jorge Coelho sits on the edge where Itaim Bibii stops being Itaim and becomes Jardim Paulistanoi — an internal block, with no through traffic, on this side of Avenida Cidade Jardimi. It is the part of the neighbourhood that benefits from both heritages: the offices and shops of Itaim a few minutes away, and the wide, tree-lined streets of the neighbouring development starting at the corner. Parque do Povoi is about four hundred metres away, Iguatemii and JK Iguatemii less than nine hundred, and Estação Cidade Jardimi seven hundred. An address with almost no noisy corner — which, in a neighbourhood built of avenues, is the hardest thing to find, and what makes sense of a ground floor returned to the garden.