Beacon's project is the combination of an innovative pedagogical project with a built heritage in an old industrial neighborhood in the central area of São Paulo. The school's program supports, approximately, one hundred students from elementary to high school.
Designed by Andrade Morettin Arquitetos + GOOA – Gusmão Otero Arquitetos Associados
Photographed by Nelson Kon
All of them accommodated in an inclusive space that offers the entire specific structure for each cycle and allows the integration among different ages' students. The integration proposal goes beyond: it encourages the permanent approchement between students, teachers, coordinators and employees.
The property is composed by an industrial shed complex, now in disuse. On the one hand, the sheds are rustic and giant for the scale of the children. On the other hand, they represent a generous and fairly solid built heritage.
The proposal seeks the idea of making full use of this built heritage and, from this monumental structure, introduces new elements capable of accommodating the specific activities of the school and simultaneously introducing the appropriate scale and the finishing materials in order to tame the space.
All the new elements are built with light industrial components, such that the assembly of these will take place in the local, clearly opposing to the existing sheds, thus establishing a frank dialogue between the preexisting and the new.
