Pedras Brancas

History

The Pedras Brancas was established as a condominium in July 1984, on Alameda Itu, in the stretch of Jardim Paulistai that borders Jardim Américai and climbs towards Avenida Paulistai. It belongs to the crop of buildings that Alameda Itu received between the late 1970s and mid-1980s — the same generation as the Mansão de Itu, at number 885, the Bauman Jardins, at 911, and the Ana Cristina, at 999 —, when the last large plots in the residential heart of the Jardinsi were built up with generous floor areas and one unit per floor. It is the last wave before the law tightened the height limit and the land ran out. The design’s authorship is not documented in any public source and, for that reason, is not attributed here.

• Concept: a large floor plan on a 1,727 m² plot two blocks from Paulista, resolved in height rather than in area — the approach Jardim Paulista took while it could still build upward.
• Curiosities: the building is not a single prism. The municipality’s aerial photogrammetric survey records two distinct volumes on the plot, one of 83.8 m and another of 78.0 m, staggered — the device early-1980s projects used to break up the tower’s mass and gain façade frontage without losing floors. The 83.8 m puts it well above its immediate neighbours on the street: the Mansão de Itu, at 885, measures 66.7 m, and the Ana Cristina, at 999, measures 31.6 m.

Architecture and aesthetics

A single tower set on a 1,727 m² plot, designed in two staggered volumes of different heights — 83.8 m and 78.0 m by the municipal register’s measurements. The staggering is the gesture that defines the building: instead of a single-face running slab, the design cuts the mass into two bodies, which multiplies the façade area, better distributes natural light through the floor plan, and gives the silhouette a profile recognisable from afar, on a block where almost every neighbour is a simple prism. The design’s authorship is not publicly documented and is not attributed.

Aesthetics and scarcity

Technical specifications

• Towers and units: 1 tower in two staggered volumes, on a 1,727 m² plot.
• Floor areas: standard unit of 228 m², with 3 to 4 bedrooms. The record in circulation also registers larger units, of 288 m² and up to 320 m².
• Parking spaces: the record in circulation registers up to 4 spaces in the larger units.
• Structural highlights: staggered massing in two bodies of 83.8 m and 78.0 m measured height; 1,727 m² plot.
• Registry and parameters: plot 1,727 m² · 1 tower in two volumes · measured heights of 83.8 m and 78.0 m · delivered 1984 · registry jurisdiction 13º Registro de Imóveis de São Pauloi · zoning ZM (Lei 16.402/2016).

Location and surroundings

Points of interest · distances in metres

Jardim Paulista: the address

Jardim Paulistai is the neighbourhood where São Paulo learned to live well and never forgot how. Alameda Itu cuts through the residential heart towards Avenida Paulistai, a few blocks from the shopfronts, tables and galleries that made the name of the Jardinsi — and within walking distance of Colégio Dante Alighierii, Parque Trianoni and MASPi. It is an address that does not depend on novelty: the street layout, the local shops and the tree cover have been established for more than half a century, the metro serves Paulista in both directions, and recent verticalisation has found very little land left to grow into. In property registries the block falls under the Cerqueira Césari subdistrict; in the postal system and the market, it is Jardim Paulista.