"Patio Passage" is speculative project in architecture and urban planning to restructure a site and its surroundings. Located in Recife, Brazil, this project seeks to question the various physical and cultural barriers translated into architecture and urbanism by investigating the relationships between some elements of the city that are sometimes paradoxical: the new and the old; the interior and the exterior; the passage and the permanence; the shallow and the deep; the gray and the green.

 

I have analysed the neighborhood uses, legislations and mobility and concluded that a mixed-use building with high permeability could generate a place close to the public environment without excessive barriers so commonly seen in city today and allow public interaction between a varied population. The ground floor is the most important level in any building. It is through it that the other floors connect with its surroundings, with the space of the city. Understanding the importance of this level, I proposed uses such as shops, cafes, cinema and courtyards, which are democratic uses and provide shelter and support the city’s dynamics.

 

The structural solution adopted was a mixed system of “I” profile metal beams and pillars, spatial trusses, steel tie rods and steel deck slabs allowing the use of fewer pillars and ensuring greater spatial freedom. The wooden pantographic curtains arranged on the façades are made of 20cm wide slats with 1cm spacing and vary in height depending on the façade on which it is installed. These curtains, in addition to acting as thermoacoustic isolates, give unity to the building-passage and carry this project’s design concepts: dynamic, fluidity, permeability and unpredictability.