Articles by Susanna Moreira

Casa 17-JB is located in a condominium in the city of Curitiba, in southern Brazil. The project originated from a request by a client close to the team, of Italian descent, an architecture enthusiast eager to work together with the office to find the suitable land for the construction of their new residence amidst nature. The choice of the lot was defined by two decisive conditions: the presence of a native forest protected by environmental legislation and the steep topography. These restrictions directly guided the architectural proposal.

West Canal Yards was formerly a vital hub in Seattle’s fishing industry, comprised of two buildings: a long-running fish processing facility including a 30,000-square-foot freezer. These hard-working structures now form the foundation of this adaptive reuse project along Seattle’s Ship Canal.

The renovation of the Gardiner Museum’s ground floor was guided by three core principles: Accessibility, Connectivity, and Indigeneity. The project aimed to create a welcoming, flexible, and culturally resonant environment while highlighting the museum’s world-class ceramics collection. A key inspiration was the desire to strengthen visual and physical connections across the ground floor, provide improved circulation, and recognize Indigenous ceramic traditions through the museum’s first permanent gallery dedicated to Indigenous works, designed by Chris Cornelius of studio:indigenous and curated by Franchesca Hebert‑Spence, the museum’s inaugural Curator of Indigenous Ceramics.

The flat terrain with generous dimensions, intended for a residence with a maximum area of 250 m², motivated us to position it in a way to maximize the interface between the covered program and the external areas. The resulting distribution follows a logic already tested in other residential projects by the office, where the circulation between the rooms is configured as covered passages, yet open laterally — without frames or masonry — to extend the experience between the interior and exterior.

Located on a steep slope in Nova Lima, Minas Gerais, Casa Ouro Velho folds and opens across multiple levels, establishing a continuous and respectful dialogue with the natural landscape and the exuberance of the Atlantic Forest. Designed as a direct response to the topography and surrounding forest, the project is organized into levels that embrace the terrain, establishing a continuous dialogue between architecture and nature, with precise cuts that ensure the preservation of the larger native trees on the lot.

The municipality of Cunha, located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, is a region known for its inland landscape, hilly terrain, and, especially, a major production of nationally renowned ceramics. It is within this context that the office messina | rivas has been working since 2017, with a set of projects located on a farm. Their work, which integrates design and construction in an indissociable manner, results in interventions that reveal a sensitive approach to pre-existing conditions and their surrounding environment.

Located 100 meters above sea level, in the Caboclo neighborhood of Paraty, the house is immersed in a natural incline of Atlantic forest that extends to form the Serra da Bocaina.

Located in the Jardins neighborhood of São Paulo, this apartment occupies the first floor of a building designed by Sérgio Ambrogini in 1973. The current intervention builds upon a previous renovation, carried out in 2021 by Studio Lak, from which some elements were preserved.