Can Architecture Be Read as a Work of Art? An Interview With gru.a
Trans-scale is an interesting word. It can mean the passage from one scale to another, a shift in magnitudes. It can also mean the negation of the scale itself, the refusal to accept its physical limits. It is also the term used by Pedro Varella to describe the practice of gru.a (a group of architects), a Rio de Janeiro-based office of which he is a partner along with Caio Calafate. Supported by a tripod of design, education and research, gru.a has carried out a relevant set of works that have earned it recognition within and outside Brazil in just over ten years of work.
The Beach and the Time. Image © Rafael Salim
Trans-scale is an interesting word. It can mean the passage from one scale to another, a shift in magnitudes. It can also mean the negation of the scale itself, the refusal to accept its physical limits. It is also the term used by Pedro Varella to describe the practice of gru.a (a group of architects), a Rio de Janeiro-based office of which he is a partner along with Caio Calafate. Supported by a tripod of design, education and research, gru.a has carried out a relevant set of works that have earned it recognition within and outside Brazil in just over ten years of work.
Nominated for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) 2022 and the DÉBUT of the Lisbon Triennial 2019, gru.a also has two first-place trophies in the Tomie Ohtake AkzoNobel Architecture Prize (2015 and 2019), as well as awards in design competitions. More recently, in 2022, it was included in ArchDaily's list of best New Practices for a work based on resource economy that challenges the conventional limits of architecture and claims the possibility of being read as art.
