Espaço Núcleo Pulso / 23 SUL

Architects: 23 SUL
Location: Higienópolis, São Paulo – State of São Paulo, Brazil
Architects In Charge: André Sant’Anna da Silva, Gabriel Manzi, Ivo Magaldi, Lucas Girard, Luís Pompeo, Luiz Florence, Moreno Zaidan, Tiago Oakley
Team: João Miguel Silva, Chayene Cardoso, Fernanda Schelp, Lucas Menezes
Area: 120.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Pedro Kok

Construction Management: 23 SUL
Construction: Visani Engenharia
Acoustic Design And Installation: Marins Arquitetura
Lightning And Fixed Furniture Design: 23 SUL
Fixed Furniture And Ceiling: Marcenaria Ideias e Projetos
Electrical Installation: Juveniel Reis

Text description provided by the architects. Espaço Núcleo Pulso is body awareness and therapeutic space in the center of São Paulo. The institution is located on the last floor of a tall building, hosting different sorts of activities.

The teacher and psychologist Mariana Camarote – head of Espaço Núcleo Pulso – wanted to implement different spaces for individual personal therapy and group activities, as well as corporal expression dynamics, related to Body Movement in Brazil.

The concept of the refurbishment design was to transform a typical open-space office without subdivisions and modular mineral lining with a low-ceiling challenge, into a space that could host the main hall among the rest of the program: a waiting area, a dressing room which eventually became the gateway to the main hall – a decompression and transition space –, an office for individual therapies, kitchen, two toilets and individual locker rooms.

One of the biggest challenges was the coexistence of dance space in an office building, where silence is a key factor. In order to accomplish this specific need, a noise abatement system with vibration-absorbing bulkheads has been implemented. The elevated floor, capable of absorbing impacts and sounds – as well as the use of foam plates between the slabs of the ribbed concrete slab. These elements were painted in black to serve as an infinite background for the wooden structure beneath the ceiling, inspired by Japanese wood handling, which reinforces the rigidity of the constructive axes of the window frames, in contrast with the flatness and homogeneity of the bamboo flooring the dance floor.