Paola Lenti’s São Paulo Flagship Turns Architecture Into A Living Frame

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Paola Lenti’s three-story flagship showroom in São Paulo’s Jardins neighborhood uses a glass-and-metal structure and a planted façade to frame the Italian brand’s furniture. Designed by Armentano Arquitetura, the greenery is expected to keep growing and provide greater filtering and privacy over time.

Paola Lenti’s three-story flagship showroom in São Paulo’s Jardins neighborhood brings the Italian furniture brand’s color-rich pieces into a building designed by Armentano Arquitetura (AARQ). The 8,100-square-foot space pairs glass and dark metal with a planted façade intended to grow into a denser screen, making the building itself a changing frame for the collection.

As reported by Design Milk, the showroom was created for Paola Lenti, whose furniture combines technical approaches to fibers with artisanal work in textiles. The brand is represented exclusively in Brazil by Casual Móveis and operates in more than 60 countries, according to the report. The design challenge for AARQ was to give the furniture visual prominence without making the architecture compete with it.

The building’s independent metal structure supports an open interior that can be rearranged, while a glass envelope keeps views through the showroom. Tensioned steel cables span the structure’s openings and support vines that cascade over the glazing. The planting is still developing; the design calls for it to grow into a thicker veil that will filter daylight and offer more screening from neighboring buildings.

Inside, the contrast is deliberate: matte-black stairs and structural elements sit against expanses of foliage and floor-to-ceiling glass. The report describes views of palms, broad-leafed tropical plants and trailing vines, bringing the landscape into the visual composition of the showroom. The project was photographed by Ruy Teixeira after the vegetation had begun to establish itself.

A Showroom Designed to Change

The façade makes the project more than a conventional retail setting: its appearance is expected to change as the plants grow. That gives the showroom a continuing relationship with its site and means the architectural effect is not entirely fixed at opening. The greenery is also intended to address a practical challenge on a compact urban lot, where nearby buildings made privacy a concern even as the design called for transparent glazing.

AARQ’s approach also connects the building’s materials to Paola Lenti’s products. The brand’s furniture uses engineered fibers and textured, vivid surfaces; the architects translate that emphasis on material and texture into a botanical layer over the metal-and-glass structure. The connection is the design team’s interpretation, not a claim that the two materials function in the same way.

From Structural Grid to Green Façade

The project developed through changes in the design process described in the Design Milk report. Steel cables appeared in early studies, while the façade planting came later and evolved alongside the decision to use glass. Together, those choices shaped a solution to the competing aims of openness and screening on a constrained urban site.

The report says AARQ chose to wait before photographing the completed project so the vegetation could begin to perform its architectural role. The original sketch already depicted a dark, rectilinear building softened by planting. In the built project, that idea takes form in the relationship between controlled structural lines and growing vines, rather than in a façade treated as a finished, static surface.

“Our role isn’t to compete visually with the objects. It’s precisely to frame them in the best possible way.”

— João Armentano, AARQ partner and creative director, as quoted by Design Milk

Plant Growth and Opening Details

The report does not provide an opening date, project cost, construction timeline or information about the showroom’s operating hours. It also does not specify which plant species were selected, how the façade will be maintained, or how quickly the vines are expected to form the denser screen described in the design.

The intended filtering and privacy effects are presented as goals of the planting, not measured outcomes. The available information does not quantify how much daylight the mature vegetation will block or how much privacy it will provide. Those effects will depend in part on how the plants develop.

The Façade’s Growth Over Time

The clearest next development is the continued growth of the façade planting. As the vines spread across the cables and glazing, the building is expected to take on a denser, more filtered appearance. No schedule for that growth, or for a formal next project milestone, was given in the report.

More information about the showroom’s operations, maintenance plan and performance as the vegetation matures has not been provided. For now, the reported design intent is clear, while the finished appearance of the living screen remains an evolving part of the project.

Key Questions

Where is Paola Lenti’s São Paulo flagship?

The showroom is in Jardins, São Paulo, according to the report.

Who designed the flagship?

Armentano Arquitetura (AARQ) designed the three-story showroom.

What is distinctive about the façade?

The glass-and-metal structure has tensioned steel cables supporting vines. The planting is intended to grow into a denser screen that filters daylight and provides more privacy.

How large is the showroom?

The reported area is 8,100 square feet.

When did the showroom open?

The source report does not state an opening date.

Source: rss