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Recycled Brazilian office warehouse has neat ideas for small living
An abandoned, humid and dark warehouse was turned into a lovely, bright space in two months.
Mon, Nov 26 2012 at 12:56 PM
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Photo: Alexandre Dotta
In order to make its employees more comfortable when they want to take a break from work, a sports marketing company from Sao Paulo, Latin Sports, asked Brazilian architect Simone Tasca to refurbish a room to turn it into a chill out space.
An abandoned, humid and dark warehouse was turned into this lovely bright space in two months.
Photo: Alexandre Dotta
Some cool features include a wall covered with bricks recovered from discarded demolition materials, which gives a warm, asymmetrical feeling to the room.
At the center of the room there’s a large recovered pallet sofa/day bed with different heights. Even if here it is not intended for sleep, it’s an interesting idea for a studio, the opposite of getting rid of the bed: making the bed into a multi-purpose space.
On the sides, the pallets offer space for magazines or books.
Retro tiles were placed as a mix and match wall in the kitchen, where another neat idea was used: two similar, different-width tables were turned into an expandable one by cutting the legs of one a little and placing it under the other. Both were wheeled. This creates a dining room that can be expanded to double the space in no time.
Photo: Alexandre Dotta
LEDs were used to lighten the whole space.
In the small washstand, instead of a large mirror the designer decided to use eighteen small ones acquired at a beach fair creating a mirrored wall. Instead of a washbasin, a bucket was used.
The space (via Construir mais por menos) is so complete that it could easily be a 600-square-foot apartment.
Related green design stories on MNN:
- Slaying the dinosaur: Low-cost, high-performance prefabs from Unity Homes
- Builders: Energy efficiency matters in green home construction and remodeling
- Mary Richardson Kennedy leaves legacy of green design
This story was originally written for Treehugger. Copyright 2012.
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Even after reading the article, I still wouldn’t have thought that it was a warehouse. But I think what makes this more of an inspiration is the reason behind the refurbishment. I think it really deserves appreciation that this was set up for the employees’ recreational time. Instead of going out the building to release stress, they can just enjoy a cinematic experience inside their workplace.