Ruy Barbosa Labor Courthouse in São Paulo, Brazil

August 05, 2010 Category: Goverment, Public Buildings

Located in São Paulo, Brazil, Ruy Barbosa Labor Courthouse was designed by Decio Tozzi Arquitectura e Urbanismo Ltd . The traditional buildings for courthouses up to the beginning of the twentieth century, designed according to the conceptual ideas of the Grand Prix de Rome, were distinguished by their formal structures inspired by classical architecture and conveyed the idea of sumptuous monumentality.

The great solemn halls of Justice, the Salas dos Passos Perdidos, exhibited this monumentality not only through the scale of the building but also through the use of sumptuous construction materials. The conceptual issue underlying the design of this courthouse was how one may propose, within a democratic metropolitan post-industrial society, a new formal structure, a semantic expression of such an important type of public building architecture and at the same time to make its insertion in the city capable of expressing a singular relationship carrying both meanings, that is a metaphor of the metropolis in itself. The previous solemn hall, authoritarian and majestic, finds a new meaning: the Law Square, designed to represent a new square for the city of São Paulo. On the ground floor level there is a restaurant, a bank, a telephone center, a post office, a bookshop and a 500-seat auditorium which is open to the community.

The vertical circulation is made through twenty fast lifts, four of which are restricted to the private use of the judges. All the floors are interconnected with a system of multiple ramps that very effectively comply with the required circulation of approximately 20,000 people per day. The glass roof covering the Law Square is placed at the height of 72 meters above the ground floor level, and was treated as a feature of modular design that has the characteristics of a muxarabiê suspended in the air, an effect obtained simply through the alternation of different polyvinyl butyral interlayers – a sunlight controlling panel within the square space.

Since it was so designed the space configures a new square in the city of São Paulo due to its scale and volumetric configuration – a square bathed in sunlight but protected from rain and wind, proposed as a meeting place, a space for social intercourse and harmony between peoples.

Ruy Barbosa Labor Courthouse Design by Decio Tozzi Arquitectura e Urbanismo Ltd