Kaiserstrasse Residential Building

The design decision I am most proud of is probably the one that is hardest to capture in photographs. It is not found in the building’s form but in what it gives back to the city.For decades, Brazilian vertical housing has been shaped by a logic of separation. Walls, fences, setbacks, and barriers have created buildings that engage very little with public space. With Kaiserstraße, we sought to move in the opposite direction. We opened the ground floor. We allowed the landscape to flow through the site. We created a building that begins not at the apartment door, but at the sidewalk.Architecture should not exist solely for those who live within it. It should also generate value for those who pass by.If there is something the jury may not be able to fully appreciate through drawings and photographs alone, it is precisely this urban dimension. The building was not conceived as an object. It was conceived as part of a larger system called the city.

Urban densification is inevitable. The question is not whether we will build denser cities. The question is what kind of city we choose to build.For a long time, vertical living has been associated with a loss of quality of life: less nature, less space, and less connection to the outdoors. Kaiserstraße emerged from an attempt to challenge that assumption.I believe that living at height should not require giving up the qualities we traditionally associate with a house: natural light, cross ventilation, vegetation, privacy, and a connection to the sky.Perhaps the role of the contemporary architect is precisely this: to ensure that increasing density does not come at the expense of quality of life.The cities of the future will need to accommodate more people. But they will also need to become more humane.

The trees at Kaiserstraße are not decoration. They are infrastructure.There is a tendency to view vegetation as a complementary element of architecture. I believe exactly the opposite. In many cases, it is just as important as the structure itself.To make this vision possible, we developed structural studies, adequate soil volumes, drainage and irrigation systems, and carefully selected plant species. Yet the most interesting aspect is not the engineering required to plant the trees. It is the acceptance that they will continue shaping the building long after construction is complete.Concrete ages. Trees grow.Over the coming decades, the façade will be transformed by life itself. Perhaps that is one of the project’s greatest lessons: understanding that architecture is not static. It is a living organism that evolves alongside time.