Quiet Opulence Lands at São Paulo Airport’s VIP Terminal

No one—save for the most committed aviation enthusiast—enjoys the airport. The sounds of hundreds of voices bounce off hard, smooth surfaces and reverberate around soaring interior volumes. Glaring fluorescents, icy as a dentist’s operating light, eliminate any sense of time. Labyrinthine corridors and constant security checkpoints give every interaction the tone of an interrogation. With their peculiar combination of sensory overload and deprivation, airline terminals rarely generate anything but stress—which is precisely the experience that Pascali Semerdjian Arquitetos and Perkins&Will (P&W) set out to subvert when the two firms collaborated on the newly opened BTG Pactual VIP Terminal at São Paulo’s notoriously crowded Guarulhos International Airport.

Named for the Brazilian bank that spearheaded the project, the facility is believed to be the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere—not merely a suite of first-class lounges or VIP rooms within an existing structure, but a standalone building that allows well-heeled travelers to evade the frustrations, indignities, and congestion endemic to conventional airports. For P&W principal and São Paulo studio managing director Fernando Vidal, that architectural independence was fundamental. Where a lounge might help alleviate the anxieties of check-in, security, and immigration—a palliative at best—the sequestered São Paulo Airport terminal, he notes, would be “the first experience on a trip, so the question was how to transform that experience.”

Take a Break at This São Paulo Airport Terminal

The P&W team began by rethinking both the physical and conceptual basics of air-transit architecture: natural, rather than artificial, light; wood and stone rather than what Vidal calls “technological materials” like steel columns and epoxy floors; transparency rather than obfuscation; and deep-rooted specificity rather than placeless anonymity. The building the firm envisioned—functional yet comfortable, calming yet characterful—was, the architect acknowledges, “essentially a private house with a public use.”

Spanning 26,000 square feet, the terminal’s main volume is divided into two sections: “land” (the equivalent of a standard terminal’s pre-security check-in area) and “air” (the departures lounge). Separating them, a shared internal garden is planted with trees specifically selected not to attract birds—an essential air-traffic safety consideration. Still, winged visitors of a sort do perch on the structure, in the form of twin butterfly roofs that admit natural light and offer views of the sky through clerestory windows and glazed side walls. A pair of hallways hidden in the building’s lateral ends link the two pavilions while discreetly accommodating security and immigration stations—domestic on one side, international on the other.

Nothing Beats a Luxe Holiday at This São Paulo Airport Terminal

With the architecture of the shell determined, Pascali Semerdjian was brought in to outfit the interiors. For coprincipal Sarkis Semerdjian, who frequently works on residential projects for affluent clients, the first challenge was to offer “the feeling of something familiar—but more.” In Brazil, he notes, high-end houses and apartments too often feel “pasteurized,” relying on a handful of pieces by iconic artists and designers as obvious signifiers of wealth and taste. In all the firm’s assignments, coprincipal Domingos Pascali adds, “We aim to create something elegant that doesn’t feel copy-pasted,” combining lesser-known works by mid-century masters, pieces by contemporary designers, and custom furnishings tailored to the specific demands of the project itself.

In this case, the ask was for interventions that would provide discrete, private spaces without disrupting P&W’s open, airy plan. Using slats of pau ferro—an indigenous hardwood the color of walnut—Semerdjian crafted gridded screens reminiscent of traditional Brazilian muxarabi, an adaptation of Moorish mashrabiya latticework, which are deployed throughout the terminal. On the “land” side, for instance, they appear in the check-in lounge as low partitions defining seating booths that flank the glazed wall overlooking the garden. On the “air” side, they enclose a pergola housing an intimate jade green–marble bar and dining area, furnished with Etel Carmona chairs and tables by Luciana Martins and Gerson de Oliveira—two recent examples of refined, cliché-free regional design.

Indigenous Brazilian Hardwood Furnishes This Quiet Haven

Not that Brazil’s trademark ebullience doesn’t occasionally break through. Responding to the client’s request that the restrooms be particularly memorable—and accommodate fresh flowers—Semerdjian, in perhaps the project’s most daring design gesture, dreamed up a wash station of almost equatorial lushness. Set in a large white-marble box, a rectangular green-marble sink is fed, waterfall-style, by a floor-standing brass faucet, its sculptural column surmounted by a shallow trough planted with tropical flora, as if the flow originated from a natural forest spring.

That voluptuous, overflowing sink is as overtly expressive as the terminal’s formal language gets. Nothing else is especially grand or performative. Even the soaring roofline, which Vidal acknowledges was conceived to resemble a bird touching down, serves less to draw the eye upward than to dematerialize the building, allowing attention to drift toward the garden growing at its heart. The materials palette is quietly considered: Walls are clad in pau ferro paneling or fine-grain acrylic plaster; upholstery fabrics—from buttery leather to nubbly bouclé—introduce textural and tonal variety; creamy limestone-look porcelain tile flooring is softened by natural-fiber rugs; and marble is used sparingly but with telling effect.

While modern airport architecture often seems intended to overwhelm travelers with something like awe, P&W and Pascali Semerdjian employ altogether subtler means to achieve a more modest—but more difficult—goal. “Normally when you go to an airport, you’re hoping to pass through as quickly as possible,” Vidal concludes. “We want people to stay a little longer.”

Enjoy the Zen Vibes at Guarulhos International Airport’s New Terminal

Get a Platinum Passport to the BTG Pactual VIP Terminal

PASCALI SEMERDJIAN ARQUITETOS: ISIS GOMES; BRENO PINHEIRO; LUIZA LEITE; JOÃO PAULO MACHADO; LEONARDO GUIMARÃES. PERKINS&WILL: DOUGLAS TOLAINE; LARA KAISER; ADRIANA BARBOSA; CASSIA MORAL; GABRIEL FREITAS; GABRIELA VIOTTI; RODRIGO GIANONI; GUSTAVO TEIXEIRA; GUILHERME MENESES; FABIO JUNGSTEDT; FERNANDO HOLANDA; PRISCILA PASQUARELLI; ALICE UEMOTO. SAENG ENGENHARIA: CIVIL ENGINEER. CONTROL TEC: CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT.

FROM FRONT
SNALDI: FENCING, SOFFIT LINING (EXTERIOR). STUDIO LUCAS CARAMÉS: ARMCHAIRS (CHECK-IN LOUNGE). THROUGH ANTIQUÁRIO CRISTIANO ROSS: VINTAGE SOFA. PSDS: LIGHT COFFEE TABLES. ECOPHON: ACOUSTIC CEILING (CHECK-IN LOUNGE, INT’L LOUNGE). MICASA: MODULAR SOFA (INT’L ARRIVALS). ESTÚDIO FELIPE MADEIRA: SIDE TABLES. LEPRI: WALL TILE. ETEL: SIDE TABLES, SIDE CHAIRS (PERGOLA). OVO: CAFÉ TABLES (PERGOLA), LOUNGE CHAIRS (DOMESTIC ARRIVALS). BOOBAM: SIDE TABLE (DOMESTIC ARRIVALS). THROUGHOUT STO BRASIL: PLASTER. CLATT TAPETE & CARPETE: RUGS. COLORMIX: FLOOR TILE. GUARDIAN GLASS: GLAZING. CIALUM: WINDOW FRAMES. LABLUZ: EXTERIOR LIGHTING.