This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.
Casacor São Paulo, the flagship edition of Brazil's annual architecture and interiors exhibition – where designers transform an existing site into dozens of showcase spaces – concludes on 9 August 2026. Before it does, Brazil-based design enthusiasts should make their way to the historic Parque da Água Branca to experience ‘Semibreve Studio’, a space by Estúdio Clara Nahas.
Clara Nahas at ‘Semibreve Studio’
The 55 sq m apartment is a tribute to Nahas' late mother, a pianist who profoundly shaped the designer’s creative outlook. Framed in the bedroom is the original score of a song her mother composed after Nahas' birth – the designer describes it as a kind of birth certificate for her artistic sensibility. In the living area, a Todeschini kitchen finished in a Giardino-tinted oak veneer flows into a sideboard built for a record player and her mother's vinyl collection, capped by a Da Vinci quartzite countertop.
The studio's name references the semibreve – the longest note value in musical notation. That idea of sustained stillness runs through the design, which is meant to slow visitors down. One way it achieves this is by inverting typical housing logic: you enter through the private zone, passing the bedroom and study, before arriving at the open living and kitchen areas.
Recreate the mood
At the centre of the plan stands a sculptural burgundy cylinder clad in deep red ceramic tiles by Turkish manufacturer Keramika, proportioned to tuck beneath the building's principal ceiling beam. It serves a triple function, enclosing the bathroom while carving out a study desk on one side and, on the bedroom face, a combined music nook and vanity. Above this, a display of hourglasses serves as another poetic reminder of time's passage.
The apartment preserves the building's original timber parquet floors and gabled beam-and-slat ceiling, while introducing a series of quirky interventions. Furniture favours soft, organic forms, including the ‘Amana’ modular sofa by Nildo José, paired with a curated selection of Brazilian design and art that foregrounds women creators: pieces by Lina Bo Bardi and Cristiana Bertolucci, a golden-grass pendant lamp crafted by Quilombola artisans, and artworks by Maria Bonomi, Jandyra Waters and others.
The bedroom features layered indirect lighting, a Líder Design bed and a Botteh rug, while the adjoining bathroom turns fully immersive – wrapping floor and ceiling in red and pairing honed Napoleon Bordeaux marble with dark-finished Deca fixtures.
Semibreve Studio achieves a remarkable amount within the confines of a showcase apartment. Its personal and musical allusions are constant, clever and cohesive – a moving tribute to Nahas' mother that succeeds in making visitors pause and reflect amid the chaos of São Paulo.