Foco Luz e Desenho: Winner of World Design Awards 2025. The Tania Bulhões flagship on Avenida Europa, in São Paulo, Brazil, redefines the retail experience by merging commerce, gastronomy, and heritage preservation into a single architectural statement. Originally a 1970s residence with classical features, the building was carefully renovated to preserve its historical character – vaulted ceilings, a central domus, and ornamental details – while introducing a contemporary interior program that combines a concept store with a restaurant.

The lighting design became the core mediator between past and present, shaping atmospheres that balance functionality and emotion. The client’s main request was to create a flexible system capable of highlighting products with precision while maintaining a warm, welcoming environment. This demanded an approach that integrated diffuse and accent lighting, adaptable to diverse spatial scales and materials.

On the ground floor, a tensile fabric ceiling with integrated backlighting creates homogeneous diffuse light, softening the low ceiling height. LED projectors mounted on discreet tracks provide product highlights, while embedded furniture lighting enhances visibility without visual clutter. In adjacent areas, the diffuse layer shifts to perimeter coves and curtain recesses, extending light both inward and outward.

The restaurant presented the most significant challenge: a double-height space capped by a glass dome where direct overhead lighting was impossible. The solution combined indirect LED profiles tracing the dome’s edges, decorative table lamps offering localized intimacy, and perimeter coves that maintained an ambient glow. This strategy avoided intrusive fixtures while delivering visual comfort and a sense of belonging.

In the wine lounge, a mirrored ceiling created an optical void, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. To counter this, perimeter coves washed the walls with soft light, while embedded projectors provided targeted accents, restoring balance in a space that could easily collapse into darkness.

Throughout the project, the lighting interacts with multiple materials – wood, glass, metal – requiring precise calibration of intensity and color temperature to avoid glare or unwanted reflections. Exterior lighting was deliberately minimal: subtle highlights on pilasters and cornices underscore the classical volumetry without competing with the architecture.

This project exemplifies adaptability at multiple levels: the transformation of a private residence into a multifunctional flagship, the fusion of retail and dining into a single spatial narrative, and the coexistence of classical architecture with contemporary light design. By treating light as both a technical and emotional medium, the design team translated brand identity into spatial experience, ensuring comfort, elegance, and precision coexist.

Beyond its commercial role, the flagship contributes to the cultural fabric of São Paulo. It demonstrates how architecture can evolve without erasure, offering a model of urban reuse that respects memory while embracing innovation. The project illustrates how light, when orchestrated with intent, can reconcile architectural heritage with contemporary demands, generating spaces that are not only functional but transformative.

Project Details:-
Firm
Foco Luz e Desenho

Designer
Ana Karina Camasmie & Junia Azenha

Project Name
Tania Bulhões Flagship

Project Category
Lighting Design (Built)

Team
Ana Karina Camasmie, Junia Azenha, Camila Concer, Clara Mezejewski, Lais Ribeiro, Giovanni Grigio, Jonatas Oliveira, Bruna Alves

Project Location
São Paulo

Country
Brazil

Photography ©Credit
©Guilherme Castro & Fran Parente

Founded in 2004 by architects and lighting designers Junia Azenha and Ana Karina Camasmie, Foco Luz & Desenho is a Brazilian practice specialized in architectural lighting design across corporate, commercial, and residential sectors. With a multidisciplinary team of 30 professionals, the studio combines technical expertise, creative sensibility, and a strong commitment to results. Its award-winning portfolio includes honors such as the iF Design Award 2024, AZ Awards 2023, and World Architecture Festival 2023. With over 3,000 projects completed, Foco Luz & Desenho continues to explore light as a design tool that transforms spaces and creates meaningful human experiences.