Exposed concrete sets the structural rhythm that defines the identity of this São Paulo apartment, designed by RAWI Arquitetura

The RAWI Arquitetura renovation of this São Paulo apartment began by dismantling the original floor plan entirely, in service of two goals: to expand the communal spaces and to open the interior toward the landscape. Corridors were reduced, thresholds dissolved, spaces integrated into a continuous sequence. The balcony ceased to be an appendage and became the destination.

By integrating the balcony into the living area, the renovation exposed two structural columns that had until then remained hidden within the enclosure. Architect Wittmann chose not to neutralise them, but to clad them in slatted concrete — ripas in Portuguese — turning them into the project’s spatial point of reference. From that gesture, the entire floor plan reorganised itself around them.

A social space organised in layers

The main living area is resolved around an island sofa with reversible backrests as its central piece, oriented toward the tree canopy views of the Jardins neighbourhood. The perimeter wall, clad in American oak from floor to ceiling, integrates doors and openings without interrupting the plane, unifying the reading of the perimeter. Hanging on it is a large-format work by Ronald Lago — organic forms in green, terracotta and beige — that enters into dialogue with the material palette of the whole.

The transition between the main sitting room and the television lounge is managed by a painted oxide-red steel plate shelving unit, which divides from the logic of the membrane. In this space, a modular sofa in pale grey and a travertine stone coffee table occupy one side; on the other, the Tonico armchair by Sérgio Rodrigues in cognac leather and the shelving volume holding the owners’ books, ceramics and artworks.

At the opposite end, beside the second column, a glazed wine cabinet visually defines the threshold into the music area, where a Yamaha grand piano and a hung electric guitar occupy the space with discretion. For the owners, music is a private practice, and the architecture made room for it with the same naturalness as the books or the ceramic pieces.

The dining room and kitchen, open to the outside

The formal dining room opens onto the glazed facade with city views. A circular wooden table with a cylindrical base and oak armchairs organise the space with restraint. The lamp of black rods suspended in a cross formation brings an active geometry to the ceiling that accompanies the scale of the room and marks its gathering point.

The gourmet kitchen, in continuity with the informal dining area, combines the dark stone island with a light wood side table and camel leather chairs. A ceiling-hung planter introduces a vegetal presence into the work area and connects the interior visually with the terraces. The service kitchen, resolved with lacquered fronts and a continuous grey stone worktop, maintains the material coherence of the whole.

The bedrooms, each at its own scale

The master bedroom organises a space of quiet. The moss-green fabric headboard spans the full width of the wall and sets the chromatic tone of the room. Translucent white linen curtains filter the lateral light. Floating oak bedside tables and a wooden bench at the foot of the bed complete a room in which the materials follow the same design logic as the rest of the house.

The children’s bedrooms were designed around autonomy: low beds, accessible shelving and study areas integrated into the furniture define spaces that grow with their occupants. The playroom, with a storage bench-sofa in wood and mixed upholstery, is designed for open and intensive use. The children’s bathrooms feature handcrafted hexagonal tiles in colours chosen by each child.

Throughout the project, concrete, American oak and solid hardwood build a palette that holds its coherence from beginning to end. The slatted concrete columns remain visible in every space and recall the origin of each decision. What at first appeared as a structural constraint became a name, a rhythm and the identity of the whole.

Project: Apartamento Ripas.
Location: Jardim Paulista, São Paulo, Brasil.
Area: 320 m².
Completed: 2025.
Architecture and interiors: RAWI Arquitetura
Architect: Raphael Wittmann.
Team: Giovanna Araújo, Mayara Yamaya, Ulisses Hubner, Wilmar Junior.
Construction: Zabo Engenharia.
Photography: Rafael Renzo.
Source: RAWI Arquitetura.

Raphael Wittmann

Raphael Wittmann trained as an architect at the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in São Paulo, where his final degree project centred on the Casa da Música — a choice that already pointed toward an architecture understood as sensory experience rather than image. After graduating in 2009, he extended his training with a postgraduate degree in business administration at FIA-USP, adding a strategic and managerial dimension that today also shapes the way he runs his practice.

His early professional years took him to the Museu da Casa Brasileira in São Paulo, where he coordinated the education team, to Chile for a collaborative architecture book project, and to the curatorial committee of the VI Ibero-American Architecture Biennial — experiences that built a broad perspective, equally attentive to the project and to its cultural and disciplinary context.

In 2013 he founded RAWI Arquitetura + Design in the Jardim Paulistano neighbourhood of São Paulo, where the studio has been based ever since. His practice is rooted in the tradition of São Paulo architectural thought and in the city’s brutalist legacy: an architecture in which the plastic force of structural volumes and the honest expression of materials organise space and produce that play of light and shadow that gives it character and density.

Over more than a decade, RAWI has developed over eighty residential and commercial projects across São Paulo and other Brazilian states, working at different scales — from new-build architecture to interior projects, from furniture design to broader territorial interventions. Concrete, steel, brick, stone, timber and glass are the studio’s habitual materials, handled with directness and without artifice.

Sustainability is part of the design process from the outset: material selection, waste management, photovoltaic energy, rainwater harvesting and natural ventilation are variables the studio integrates as part of a considered position on the relationship between architecture and its environment.

Wittmann understands form as the outcome of a process of listening, reflection and drawing. An architecture that takes shape through use, asserts itself in matter, and endures over time.

Project by Raphael Wittmann