This is the design of the exhibition furniture of the FAU Mostra Projeto show, held between May and June 2011 on the Museum Floor of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Sao Paulo, FAU USP, in Brazil. The relationship between the human body and the vertical and horizontal supports for the display of architectural projects (draws and models) produced by the students of the institution was the starting point of the work. It was designed as an extracurricular activit during the ungraduate architecture studies on the same faculty.
The feasibility of implementation with a low budget was a key feature of the proposal. Therefore, the MDF board (1.84 m x 2.75 m x 25 mm) was chosen as the base material. The maximum use of the sheets, without waste, and the simple construction technique, without the need of complex equipment, were also prerequisites. From MDF boards as a modulation, only two types of pieces are drawn: one that uses the whole sheet and another one that uses its half. From the connection between these two types of pieces, a set of (vertical) panels for the display of architectural draws and (horizontal) tables for the display of models are obtained.
The project addressed two challenges: leveraging a simple material such as the MDF and creating a connection to where the furniture would be deployed. On the latter, the venue of FAU Mostra Projeto, a space for events and coexistence run by the institution’s students, is marked by the structure of internal and external pillars of orthogonal axes. The spatiality of FAU USP, a Vilanova Artigas’ project carried out between 1961 and 1969, is the principal and most outstanding feature of the building. In the architect’s words: “FAU is a fluid, integrated, somatic space. The person does not know whether they are on the first floor, the second or the third floors”.
The installation of the exhibit furniture on the Museum Floor at the same time dialogues with and opposes to the space. This is because the design and layout of the piece derive from intersections between the axes of the internal and external pillars - a striking feature of the space. On the other hand, the furniture makes use of diagonal lines, such as a zigzag, and proposes that the exhibition be experienced as a route without specific starting and finishing points. There is an invitation to a movement through the exhibition space that is different from the usual coming and going suggested by the pillars.
In the end, the chosen material revealed to be a pleasant surprise in establishing an aesthetic connection with the brutalist building. The furniture design also allows insertions in other spaces, both for its scale, as well as for the possibility of reuse, reassemble and reproducibility of its parts.
