Vão Arquitetura designed a boutique around a luxuriant indoor garden.
The Brazilian studio Vão Arquitetura has designed an innovative store around a lush indoor garden in the heart of the amazing city of São Paulo.
The Acolá store, located in the Pinheiros area in the heart of the city of São Paulo, has taken possession of an unsual townhouse: it gets narrower towards its rear, to form a kind of funnel. This gorgeous boutique has been designed around a lush indoor garden.
Before it gets renovated, the three-storey space was humid and dark according to the Vão Arquitetura team, and there were only four windows running along the main facade to bring the light into the building.
Hence, the light became their only worry, and they decided to create an opening in the roof and partially removing the upper-level slab.
“The desire to bring light into the store guided the first design decisions of replacing a part of the compromised structure with a glass ceiling and visually integrating the levels through partial demolition of the upper slab”
When visitors enter the store at street level they meet with an open shopping space made of polished concrete floors and wooden fixtures, making it both industrial and peaceful, which can be a bit confusing.
In the midst of this floor you can find a free-standing volume which includes a shelving unit to display books and accessories, and it is also used as a changing room area.
Both doors have a pivoting system in the changing area, so they can be moved to split the space up into as many fitting rooms as you need.
Throughout the entire store, Vão Arquitetura made the choice to use a simple material palette made up of wood and metals. Those raw materials are reflective of Acolá‘s approach to clothing design.
“The decision to use them in a natural state is related to the clothes produced by Acolá, which are largely natural fabrics with craft techniques of dyeing and stamping,”