New York, USA

 

Type: Visualization

Company: GSAPP (Educational Institution)

Service: Graphic Design

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Episodes from Sectional Photographs explore how architectural sections function as a representational device that both reveals and conceals the socio-political dynamics of domestic labor in Casa Butantã (1964) by Paulo Mendes da Rocha in São Paulo. The modernist house is presented through three episodes that expose its horizontal organization—a central bedroom core between two habitable corridors—and its vertical hierarchy, where the family’s living spaces are stacked above the maid’s quarters.

The cross-sections highlight the concrete structure that lifts the main volume off the ground and cantilevers the balcony corridors on both sides. While the building’s depth responds to sun-shading needs, skylights bring light into the bedrooms. By combining line drawings with photography, the sections merge memory and nostalgia with spatial representation, ultimately revealing inequalities embedded within the domestic sphere.