CCBB Windows
Belo Horizonte, MG - Brazil 2020This project is grounded in the radical architectural proposals of the avant-garde from the 1950s and 1960s—notably the visions of Yona Friedman, Cedric Price, and Buckminster Fuller—who idealized solutions characterized by speed, lightness, and flexibility to address pressing urban and social challenges. In an increasingly volatile global scenario, these concepts remain crucial for contemporary architecture. In this context, we propose the insertion of a pavilion into the central void of the historic CCBB building. The structure acts as a dynamic spatial device, designed to generate unexpected experiences and surprising vantage points of the inner courtyard. The culmination of the vertical ascent is a suspended plaza that fully opens up, integrating with the overhead skylight and, metaphorically, bringing the sky into the heart of the CCBB.
Avant-garde thinkers in the 1950s and 1960s in Europe and the United States, such as Cedric Price, Buckminster Fuller, Peter Cook, and particularly Yona Friedman, proposed radically flexible and mobile models of architecture and urban planning to address some of the most urgent and visible problems in the post-war world.
They envisioned an architectural solution focused on speed, lightness, and flexibility to solve our most challenging urban issues, establishing a three-dimensional framing of space over a given area (city, farmland, road), providing an infinitely adaptable space for inhabitants.
Today, in an increasingly volatile and ever-expanding world, a system of speed, flexibility, and light structure may be increasingly necessary to address complex social, economic, environmental, and health-related challenges.
This pavilion (a prism 7m wide, 20m long, and 18m high) aims to create a dynamic spatial experience within the void of the historic building, allowing for unusual uses and surprising views of the CCBB’s inner courtyard. As it ascends to a suspended plaza near the zenithal roof, the pavilion opens completely to the outdoors, bringing the sky into the courtyard.
Project: Janelas CCBB
Location: Belo Horizonte, MG
Year: 2020
Architecture: BCMF Arquitetos
Authors: Bruno Campos, Marcelo Fontes e Silvio Todeschi
Team: Octavio Pena
Interiors: Pedro Haruf
Status: Project
