Firm： Gustavo Penna Arquiteto & Associados

Type： Commercial › Exhibition Center Cultural › Cultural Center Museum

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2021

SIZE： 25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

BUDGET： Unknown

Sesi Lab, art, education, science and technology hub

The responsibility is much greater than the two floors of 100 meters in front,

in a total of 10 thousand square meters. Much bigger even than the address, in the

heart of the historic center of Brasília, more precisely at the intersection of the

North-South axes, the starting point of Lúcio Costa's design. Award-winning Minas

Gerais architect Gustavo Penna had the mission to “reinvent” an iconic project

conceived by Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) — and turn it into an effervescent hub of

art, education, science, technology and innovation, the Sesi Lab.

“We redesigned the place. And what excited me the most was that we were

able to give this building a value that it had not yet presented to Brasilia, a new

function, of cultural and social articulation”, comments Penna.

The space was occupied by the Touring Club of Brazil, in a privileged location

granted by the federal government to the institution in 1963. By the decay of the

association, the building ended up auctioned by the Union in 2005, occupied by a bus

station, deteriorated, and later occupied by invaders.

Now, 18 years later, Sesi Lab will be inaugurated in November. This is an

innovative initiative, maintained by Sesi, Senai and partners in the industrial sector.

Realized by the National Department of Sesi, with the collaboration of the Euvaldo

Lodi Institute and the Exploratorium Museum, in San Francisco, the architectural

requalification project was entirely developed by the Gustavo Penna Arquitetos

office and had museological assistance from the Expomus team.

The idea is for the space to host temporary and permanent exhibitions,

festivals, seminars, artistic residencies, cinema, workshops, and a series of cultural

and educational activities.

In a “reinvention” of the spaces proposed by Niemeyer, the original

architectural concept was reformulated by Penna in order to meet pedagogical,

educational and cultural objectives, reintegrating the building into society.

These interventions, while maintaining the most substantive and emblematic

features of the building, with care and respect for the master, sought to create new

connections, rearranging the internal space with modular structures, which allow for

a playful and democratic approach to knowledge, where everything is visible to be

accessible. To make new uses viable, a service, lighting and acoustics network

structure was created that enhances the structure. With the reuse of water, thermal

comfort, lighting, the use of plants from the cerrado, the building will seek Leed

certification to be an example of sustainability.

With the removal of fences added over time on the lower floor, the

permeability proposed in the original project was restored to the building. By

opening the building to the surroundings, restoring a passage lined with tiles by

Athos Bulcão, SesiLab hopes to offer a new living space in the city, a square between

the National Library and the National Theater.

“The interesting thing is that the historic building, made at the time of the

founding of Brasília, continues to generate values for the future”, points out the

architect. “And I believe that every building really needs to be open to

reinterpretations in the future, so that they don't get frozen in time. All buildings

must admit of reinterpretations.”