M. A.
Services
Architectural Design
Link
Year
2020
Awarded first place in a private design competition, Melo Alves is a mixed-use development located on one of the most iconic streets in Jardins, São Paulo. Designed for a narrow urban parcel, the project explores verticality, repetition, and restraint—balancing public presence with residential privacy. Interface Craft was engaged during early design development to help define the building’s architectural language, material logic, and façade articulation.
The envelope features a modular system of precast concrete volumes paired with operable aluminum brise-soleils, designed to respond to both orientation and program. These movable elements not only provide privacy and shading, but also give the building its distinct rhythm and scale. From street level, the structure appears formal and composed; from within, it filters light and softens the urban edge.
Our contribution focused on the development of a coherent façade system that could be prefabricated, installed efficiently, and adapted across different unit types. We explored gradients of transparency and enclosure, integrating solar strategy, structural expression, and subtle graphic identity into the architectural skin.
Currently moving toward construction, Melo Alves represents a new generation of urban infill projects—technically rigorous, materially refined, and grounded in São Paulo’s evolving architectural culture. It embodies Interface Craft’s belief that even the most constrained sites can produce quietly powerful architecture when design and fabrication are considered in tandem.
