Meet the new apartment of architect Ana Moura in São Paulo

The architect Ana Moura – from the cast of CASACOR Pernambuco – has always had her work base in Recife, and for the past six years, her husband has been traveling weekly for work to the interior of São Paulo. Four years ago, when the couple's two oldest daughters moved to the capital of São Paulo to pursue postgraduate studies and work, the couple rented an apartment in the Jardins for them. With her husband's increasingly frequent trips to São Paulo, they decided to buy an apartment in the same neighborhood, already intending to do a complete renovation. "We started looking for a spacious property to comfortably accommodate our family, with plenty of natural light and a layout that would allow us to integrate the kitchen with the living room and create three suites. We visited eight apartments in the Jardins area until we fell in love with this one, which has 230 m²," says the architect. [caption id="attachment_193908" align="alignnone" width="2953"> Originally, the kitchen was small and isolated from the dining room. With the renovation, these spaces were integrated with each other and with the current dining room, which was previously occupied by a bedroom. These changes to the layout also allowed for the creation of a climate-controlled wine cellar in the kitchen, a new powder room, and a pink bar (embedded in the cabinetry panel of the home theater). Additionally, since the apartment had only one suite, the architect eliminated the service room and created (from scratch) a master suite with a closet and demolished the existing powder room in the intimate hall to create the daughter's suite. The original master suite was kept and given to the other daughter. [caption id="attachment_193912" align="alignnone" width="4429"> Ana Moura says she lived and worked in Rio for a few years and always identified with the lightness of Carioca architecture and the freshness of the decor, with a light base and pops of color. Her challenge was to transpose this atmosphere of lightness and freshness to her new home in São Paulo while maintaining the original imbuia wood flooring in the living areas and rosa peroba in the bedrooms. In the decor, following the casual chic contemporary style, the books, some objects, and furniture came from the family's old beach house in Recife, notably the Diz armchair and the Mole armchair by Sergio Rodrigues, the table with a wooden base and round glass top, and the antique wooden table used as a sideboard from the antiquarian Arnaldo Danemberg. [caption id="attachment_193911" align="alignnone" width="4429">

Among the new acquisitions, the architect prioritized timeless and unpretentious furniture that combines design and comfort in equal measure and adds a personal touch to the project, such as the Palma dining table from Estudiobola, the Bossa and Lia chairs from Jader Almeida, the Machon sofa from Arthur Casas, and the Beg armchairs from Sergio Rodrigues. "My great passions are the pair of Almendra pendant lamps over the dining table, created by Patricia Urquiola, and the red wall sculpture by Joaquim Tenreiro on the wall at the back, between the two windows," reveals the architect, who also brought from the apartment in Recife works by Eduardo Sued, Tohmie Otake, Beatriz Milhazes, Cruz Diez, Claudia Jaguaribe, Volpi, Fukuda, Genaro de Carvalho, and Sonia Menna Barreto. [caption id="attachment_193905" align="alignnone" width="3336"> Regarding the color palette adopted in the decoration, since the original wooden plank flooring was maintained (darker in the living room and lighter in the bedrooms), the architect painted the walls and ceiling of the living areas white and used light wood or white lacquered cabinetry to create a neutral base to accommodate her colorful artworks without adding visual weight. Neutrality also gave her more freedom to be bold, such as the pink bar embedded in the cabinetry panel facing the home theater and the intimate hall, which was transformed into a 'red box.' "We wanted a Carioca house with the atmosphere of the Northeast in São Paulo," says Ana Moura. "The colors were defined during the project's creation process. In parallel, I had the help of a friend architect who lives in São Paulo and provides Feng Shui consulting," she adds. [caption id="attachment_193901" align="alignnone" width="2953"> "The biggest challenge of this project was to meet the requests of all the family members and create a light decor that reflects our sunny and joyful spirit, without giving up the original darker wood flooring of the apartment. Close people believed that the flooring would make the project visually heavy, but on the contrary, it added more personality to our new home," she concludes.