Vale dos Cristais

History

Vale dos Cristais was born from a rare combination: a national-scale developer and a mining company that owned a land estate it had itself committed to preserving. The project is the fruit of a partnership between ORi — then Odebrecht Realizações Imobiliárias — and AngloGold Ashantii, owner of the land and responsible for preserving the area. The development’s marketing material presents it as the first entirely planned neighbourhood in the Belo Horizonte metropolitan region, and that is how it works: a single perimeter, with its own gatehouse and community centre, within which four residential developments of different natures coexist.

The build-out was carried out in phases, over roughly a decade. Vila Gardner was delivered in February 2008; Vila Hartt, in November 2009; and Vila Grimm, in September 2012. Running in parallel was Nascentes, the horizontal sector, with 577 plots ready for the construction of high-end houses.

• Concept: bringing the very-high-end product of the Minas Gerais capital into a reserve — apartments of generous floor area and custom-built houses at the same address, minutes from Belo Horizonte’s economic centre.
• Curiosities: the same design duo runs through all three vertical condominiums — architecture by Gustavo Pennai and landscaping by Luiz Carlos Orsinii — which gives the group an unusual formal coherence for planned neighbourhoods, where each tower usually has a different author. The common-area interior projects, on the other hand, changed with each phase: Sandra Pennai at Gardner, Eliane Pinheiroi at Hartt and Tania Sallesi at Grimm.

Architecture and aesthetics

The Vale dos Cristais signature belongs to Gustavo Pennai, one of the central names in contemporary Minas Gerais architecture, who is responsible for all three vertical condominiums. The design approach is the same across all three and responds to the same condition: large plots on a wooded hillside, which made it possible to abandon the isolated tower in favour of a cluster of low blocks spread across the land. Gardner has six towers of five storeys across 28,613 m²; Hartt, seven towers of four storeys across 31,500 m²; Grimm, ten towers of eight storeys across 52,170 m². In all three, the built density is low and the open area is the product: at Hartt, the development’s own marketing material advertises “more than 31,000 m² of land with plenty of greenery” and a living hedge along the entire perimeter, in place of a wall.

The landscaping for all three is by Luiz Carlos Orsinii, from Minas Gerais, the same author behind the gardens of Instituto Inhotim and a specialist in transplanting mature species — which explains why the condominiums were born with full-grown trees rather than saplings. In the common-area interiors, each phase had its own author: Sandra Pennai at Gardner, Eliane Pinheiroi at Hartt and Tania Sallesi at Grimm. At Nascentes, the horizontal sector, there is no single architecture: the plots are sold for custom construction, and what unifies the group is the topography and the woodland.

Aesthetics and scarcity

Technical specifications

• Towers and units: the condominium is divided into four residential developments. Three vertical: Vila Gardner (6 towers, 5 storeys, 48 units), Vila Hartt (7 towers, 4 storeys, 56 units) and Vila Grimm (10 towers, 8 storeys, 168 units). And one horizontal, Nascentes, with 577 plots of 1,000 to 3,000 m² for the construction of high-end houses.
• Floor areas: Vila Gardner, 270 to 450 m², with 4 suites; Vila Hartt, 202 to 380 m², with 4 suites, in linear, duplex and penthouse layouts; Vila Grimm, 117 to 278 m², with 2 to 4 suites, in standard, garden and penthouse layouts. At Nascentes, the area that matters is the plot’s, 1,000 to 3,000 m² — not the house’s, which is defined by each owner.
• Parking spaces: according to the unit and the residential development.
• Structural features: land areas of 28,613 m² (Gardner), 31,500.39 m² (Hartt) and 52,170.51 m² (Grimm); exclusive 24-hour gatehouse, with airlocks, armed patrol and dogs; internal CCTV circuit with monitoring and identification cameras; living hedge along the entire perimeter; complete technical facilities with generator set and gas and water-heating plants.
• Registration and parameters: development in Nova Lima/MG, outside the urban-parameter grid of the São Paulo survey. Registry jurisdiction not confirmed by source — the field is left blank.

Leisure and facilities

• Condominium community centre, with gym, restaurant, tennis courts, multi-sports court, five-a-side football pitch and walking trails
• Indoor pool with 25 m lane (Hartt and Grimm)
• Heated infinity pool (Hartt) and heated lap pool (Gardner)
• Outdoor resort-style pool (Grimm) and heated children’s pool (Gardner)
• Spa with hydromassage, massage room, relaxation room and sauna
• Fitness centre
• Tennis courts, including clay, and squash court
• Cinema room, games and card room, office room and coworking space
• Gourmet area, party hall and kids’ area with playroom
• Plaza with reflecting pool and landscaped green areas
• Walking track

Location and surroundings

Points of interest · distances in metres

Access

• By road: MG-030, the highway linking Belo Horizonte to Nova Lima. The development’s marketing material places the condominium roughly 5 km from BH Shopping.

Nova Lima: the address

Nova Limai is the municipality in Greater Belo Horizonte to which the very-high-end Minas Gerais market moved. The explanation lies underground: the city grew up around the Morro Velho mine, one of the oldest in the country, and because of that much of its territory remained for more than a century in the hands of a single owner — the mining company —, with no subdivision, no occupation and no road. When that land estate began to be converted into planned neighbourhoods, the region gained something the capital no longer had to offer: continuous tracts of woodland, twenty minutes from the financial centre. The MG-030 is the axis of that shift, and along it line up the condominiums that today concentrate the top of the Minas Gerais market. Vale dos Cristais sits on that axis, close enough to BH Shopping and Savassi that the move is no exile.