text: “Experience-environments are the future for architecture and design,” says designer Fabio Galeazzo, creative director of the Galeazzo Design studio, who, in the last four years, has dedicated great time to researching people/environment interface.
  Espaço Colletivo + Casa Manual is a hybrid experiences retail and community 17,200 sq ft space, mixing a contemporary craft and organic food store, with free access areas dedicated to working (coworking), learning (workshops, talks, shows, and presentations) and, leisure (lounge).
  A creative and innovative way to use design and technology to rethink physical spaces according to new social concepts. Creativity is promoted with the coexistence of diversity, offering transdisciplinary experiences that mix consumption and the development of new skills in workshops, talks, shows, and seminars. In addition to valuing and promoting contemporary crafts produced by ethically and environmental-friendly, creating opportunities for designer craftsmen to present and sell their work in perfect harmony with large retail players.
  Espaço Colletivo + Casa Manual aimed at bringing street culture and the rhythm of street markets into a store, taking advantage of art and design to value and, at the same time, propose new experiences in a playful and optimistic scenario, inviting the visitor to new discoveries and challenging, with them, their own limits inside the area, like a dance that comes from our own rhythm.
  Each material and finishing of the structures and furniture has its role as a social mirror and agent of interaction with visitors. Old walls were replaced by glass, bringing the movement and day-and-night lights into the site; on remaining visible walls, apparent imperfections and structures reflect the search for transparency in human relations; iron structures facing rusting processes reflect the never-changing effect of time; bamboo brings the idea of sustainability and teaches about flexibility qualities; colorful tiles tell the story of an Indian fabric named “chita,” which, with the help of Portuguese colonizers, arrived in Brazil to become a popular reference.
  Nothing was developed by chance, none of the materials or structures. Over a spiraled shelf, ten overlapping wood and bamboo petals forming a dreamcatcher, representing the signs of the divine that inhabit human unconscious. At this spiral shelf and dreamcatcher setting, craft products are available. A large selection is sold, including clothing, accessories, toys, cosmetics, household items, and much more.
  Galeazzo Design team was inspired by typical indigenous dances. In Brazilian culture, the indigenous people dance around a central square towards the center, creating a spiraled line. Huts (in Portuguese, “ocas”, typical indigenous homes) were distributed around the center. Thus, like typical indigenous architecture, the space was thought and created from the center outwards, from the core, where the large spiral shelf, built in plywood and held by over 700 bamboos, is floating, getting the attention of all those that enter the area, inviting each person to create its own story following interaction with the space.
  Surrounding this scenario, there are multiple-function areas, articulated between them and called “ocas do fazer”, which are divided into the following purposes: learning, nurturing, singing/listening, resting/working, and playing.
  At the learning hut, craftsmen daily present classes and workshops; at the nurturing hut, there is a restaurant/café/emporium, offering healthy meals; as well as the sale of products from small producers; at the singing and listening hut, a stage and stand are used for musical performances and seminars; at the playing hut, there are toys for the children to play with; at the resting/working hut, community desks, ottomans, swings, and chairs, are inviting to have light conversations or even small work meetings.