São Paulo's Estudio Flume has refurbished and extended the Babassu flour factory in Serra, Brazil to create a better workspace for the quebradeiras who turn babassu nuts into oil and flour.
The 18 quebradeiras that collect and break the nuts by hand to obtain the oil and flour ? which comes from the mesocarp, or middle layer, of the babassu nut ? needed an improved workspace that would comply with sanitary regulations and have space for better-suited equipment.
Above: 18 quebradeiras work in the factory. Top: the factory was designed in collaboration with the workers.
Estudio Flume set up a series of workshops with the quebradeiras to understand the flour production and what their expectations were for the workplace.
"Informed by these workshops, our strategy was to create an open plan workspace within the existing building and to add a low cost semi-open extension to improve the workflows between delivery, circulation and manufacture areas," Estudio Flume's founder Noelia Monteiro and architect German Nieva told Dezeen. Materials were selected based on their durability
"These communities and especially the quebradeiras are doing an admirable job in protecting the rainforest, therefore it was a privilege to have had a chance to help them improve their economic opportunities," the studio added.
The existing building was showing signs of deterioration caused by the hard work required to produce babassu flour.
This influenced the studio's choice of new mat...