Line Maker

Prize-winning Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan of Studio MK27is famed for his ability to dissolve the boundary between outside and in.

- Karen Mccartney

MARCIO KOGAN, founder of Brazilian practice Studio MK27, is a lively and witty interviewee. I tell him that his work is wellknown by Australian architects and that his treatment of the indoor/ outdoor room, often positioned under an enormous cantilever, has gained some traction here. “I will send them a bill,” he quips.

One of his latest completed projects for longstanding client Micasa, an upmarket São Paulo furniture store, is a minimalist exhibition, event and living space for visiting artists. This spare building channels a certain Japanese restraint through the use of structural 15-metre laminated timber beams that combine with a skin of translucent polycarbonate to allow the building to glow like a lantern when lit at night. As with many of his projects he chooses to tell the story of the building’s structure and materiality through a movie of his own concept and direction. Toblerone House (2011) was revealed through the perspective of a roaming pampered ragdoll cat and for Micasa vol.C (which forms part of Micasa’s furniture store complex) the short film Oh Lovely Bee takes the viewpoint of a curious insect. Spoiler alert: Kogan, in a walkthrough role, crushes the tiny voyeur underfoot at the video’s close.