Gardênia

History

The Gardênia is one of the addresses from the wave that verticalised Rua Bahia before the cycle of large full-floor towers of the 1990s — the same street that would later house Coral Bayi, Bay Five and Castagnetoi. Here the approach was already what the neighbourhood would come to embrace: a small plot, a single tower and one apartment per floor. The project’s authorship, the builder’s name and the delivery year are not publicly documented and, for that reason, are not attributed here.

• Concept: one slab per family in a narrow tower — privacy resolved by the floor plan, not by the size of the plot.
• Curiosities: the municipal register measures the tower at 46.7 metres in height on a footprint of just 232 m² — a ratio that explains the building’s design: it rises fifteen floors on a smaller footprint than a large Jardins apartment. The penthouse occupies the top two floors and has a private pool on the upper level, next to the barbecue.

Architecture and aesthetics

Single tower, fifteen floors, one apartment per floor. With only one unit per slab, the lift opens directly into the family’s hall and the floor plan occupies the entire storey, with no shared wall or ventilation shaft between neighbours. Verticality is the gesture: a 232 m² footprint supporting almost forty-seven metres of height produces a narrow, tall tower, with all façades facing outward and open views from the middle floors — over the Pacaembu valley on one side and over Higienópolis’s tree-covered core on the other. The penthouse is a duplex, with a living room and a veranda on both floors, internal stairs and lift, a kitchen on the upper floor next to the barbecue and the private pool. The architectural design’s authorship is not publicly documented.

Aesthetics and scarcity

Technical specifications

• Towers and units: 1 tower, 15 floors, 1 apartment per floor.
• Sizes: 232 to 245 m² of private area in the standard floor plans, with 3 to 4 bedrooms; the duplex penthouse has between 460 and 498 m² of private area, with up to 5 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms.
• Parking: 4 in the standard floor plan; there are records of units with 5.
• Structural highlights: 1,260 m² plot for a single tower; one apartment per slab; 46.7 m tower height on a measured footprint of 232 m²; duplex penthouse with private pool, barbecue and internal lift; air conditioning and water heating.
• Registry and parameters: 1,260 m² plot · 1 tower · 15 floors · 1 apartment per floor · measured height of 46.7 m · measured footprint of 232 m² · 4 to 5 parking spaces · private areas of 232 to 245 m² in the standard unit and 460 to 498 m² in the duplex penthouse · registry authority 5º Registro de Imóveis de São Pauloi · ZEU zoning under Law 16.402/2016.

Location and surroundings

Points of interest · distances in metres

Higienópolis: the address

Higienópolisi is the neighbourhood where São Paulo decided to live well before it knew the city would grow the other way — and never undid the decision. Rua Bahia runs through the strictly residential core, between Avenida Paulistai and Avenida Angélica, and ends at the edge of the Pacaembu valley, which is what guarantees the open horizon of the upper floors. Around it are Parque Buenos Airesi, Shopping Pátio Higienópolisi, FAAP, Mackenzie University and the row of traditional schools that makes the neighbourhood the address of families who choose a school before choosing a house; Hospital Samaritanoi and Hospital Sírio-Libanêsi are a few minutes away, and Estação FAAP-Pacaembui brought the metro into the neighbourhood. It is an address that does not depend on novelty: the street grid, the street-level shops and the tree cover have been consolidated for decades.