Tectônica do envelope, uma leitura na obra de Jô Vasconcellos

Abstract

The Envelope is a terminology that designates the scope (facade, face, skin, envelope, closings, shell) of the building which, despite the same spelling in several languages, does not have consensus (technical and theoretical demarcation) even in the technical literature. The envelope is usually associated with hermetically sealed buildings, but would it be possible to apply this technical model in a diverse building idea, like Brazilian, Latin, African, Asian, which do not share the same building principles and ambiance? Are they not shared at all, given that our buildings also face water, heat, cold, wind, humidity, mold, salt, insects, bullets, noise, pollution, in all directions, from the foundation to the roof? Understood as an emerging discipline from the energy crises of the 70s, the envelope takes protagonism in the convergence of new demands for energy conservation and extraordinary standards of comfort. In this new ordinance, the structures must be ideally protected, hidden, as well as the many functional layers that dress the building and characterize the envelope. This concealment would represent a moral digression from those rationalist precepts that aim at structural truth and material honesty, but it could also indicate new constructive paradigms in the context of current performance demands. The textile knot, tectonic, as well as the stratifications that dress the building, condense signs and ambiguities, but they also condense matter and energy in the form of water, vapors, thermal bridges, noise, contamination, technical challenges and all that can be incorporated in the “Poetics of construction”. In the diverse Brazilian climatic and productive context, the investigation of a “tropical” envelope has an unusual interpretation in the work of the architect Jô Vasconcellos, through which it explores its weaknesses and strengths, as well as its viability as a universal and particular discipline.