The Army Housing Foundation Headquarters (Fundação Habitacional do Exército – FHE) is the combination of a 30 thousand square meters office building and a 700 seats auditorium and other public spaces which resulted from an invited competition in Brasilia, Brazil.
Accordingly to the goals of this financial institution, the building conveys the principles of solidness, accessibility and transparency. The simple-volume setting establishes dialogue with the surrounding landscape, referring to the Soldier’s Chapel – designed thirty years ago by Milton Ramos.
The office-building is composed by two blocks displaced in levels and separated by a central atrium, which provides diffuse sun-lighting and natural ventilation in a comfortable and economic way. Landscape complements the buildings as a mimesis of the cerrado – the natural surrounding vegetation – in a language related to the Duque de Caxias square nearby – by the famous Brazilian designer Roberto Burle Marx. The adopted building technology allies the tradition and simplicity of the cast-in-place reinforced concrete structure to the fast-assembling and to the finishing quality of modulated industrialized materials adopted for roofing, ceiling, walling and flooring.
