Gallery ADR — Beco do Batman

ADR (Alma da Rua) is one of the most exciting galleries in São Paulo. The project gives it an annexe on Rua Gonçalo Afonso — the street of Beco do Batman — so that the gallery stops being a place you look into and becomes one you are invited in to: to linger, and to gather alongside the artists who made the alley what it is.

Site

A single-storey house sitting straight on the pavement, a few metres from the graffiti: corrugated roof, two diagonal-bar metal gates, a perforated concrete screen above the entrance. The shell stays. The internal partitions come down, so the full depth of the lot reads as one continuous space from the street to the back wall — the move the axonometric sequences record.

Approach

• A denser footprint
• Permeability
• Fusion with the street and with the graffiti
• Industrial aesthetic

General Store — programme

• Storage built into the counters, benches and a raised serpentine shelf
• Drinks fridge
• Ice-cream freezer
• Counter space for sweets and snacks

Gallery · Technical room + archive — programme

• Chest bench with storage for files and documents
• Suspended table on a lifting system
• Modular benches
• 1.5 m deep cabinet for archive storage
• Sliding panels on a track system, for spatial closure and expanded display of works

One shell, three ways of being used: a shop that keeps the door busy, a gallery that can open to the street or close around a single conversation, and an archive that stays working behind both. A multipurpose space — generous, and still refined enough for one-to-one time with a client.