Hugo Ribas created at CASACOR SP a project that belongs to the villages and to them it will return traduzido por: OPENROUTER

There is a bench at Pira Sesá that not everyone can sit on, as it belongs only to women. For the ethnic group that made it, this is part of what the object means. Hugo Ribas, responsible for the project that closes the circuit of CASACOR São Paulo 2026, knows this because he was the one who initiated the dialogue with the indigenous people. Before any design sketch, came the question: what do you want to show?

"The premise was to ask what the indigenous people wanted to display", explains Hugo. In a show where the architect is usually the central figure, it is a reversal that says a lot about the values that guide his work.

The last project of the tour

Hugo Ribas - Pira Sesá - Olho de Peixe. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2026. (Camila Santos/CASACOR)

Pira Sesá — which means fish eye — occupies a eucalyptus deck among twenty untouched trees, the last of the 70 projects that make up the show. There, bamboos used in a dance ritual, fishing basketry and graphics created alongside artist Auá Mendes coexist. "If you come back in two weeks, there will be another object on display", says the architect, pointing out that the space works as a living collection, constantly being updated.

Nothing there is by chance or for aesthetics. Landscaper Maura Lima chose moso bamboo and ornamental species that arrive in clay pots kneaded with the feet, hand-molded and fired in kilns — a process that brings together, in a single piece, indigenous, African and Portuguese heritage. Each element carries a story that precedes the project.

Hugo Ribas - Pira Sesá - Olho de Peixe. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2026. (Camila Santos/CASACOR)

Hugo describes the project almost as a co-creation. Each piece changes meaning according to the ethnic group that made it: the rain stick is ritual for one people, craftsmanship for another; fishing basketry has one meaning for the Krenak group and another for the Guaranis. "There are almost 380 indigenous peoples in Brazil. We have six represented here".

From Lebanon to indigenous peoples

Hugo Ribas - Pira Sesá - Olho de Peixe. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2026. (Roberta Gewehr/CASACOR)

Hugo Ribas has been working with museums for over fifteen years — he worked at Catavento, at the Mário de Andrade Library, and for four and a half years has been at the Museum of Indigenous Cultures, an institution he helped to establish. But the path to indigenous peoples began outside Brazil, in Lebanon, where he went to build two houses and left impressed by the way those people carried their own culture. "I wanted to look for something that Brazil valued from a culture. And then I found the indigenous peoples."

What he learned from them permeates the entire project: valuing the small things, valuing a different time from the non-indigenous time — the so-called "juruá". "We sometimes don't value time. But I always learn. They speak of the elders, they speak of family, they value their elders, their ancestors".

Hugo Ribas - Pira Sesá - Olho de Peixe. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2026. (Roberta Gewehr/CASACOR)

Part of the furniture is signed by Paulo Alves, Hugo's partner for fifteen years, chosen for coherence, not for aesthetics. "Everything here needed to have people who truly have this care for nature". About Paulo, he states: "To me he is an inspiration. Not only for the finishes, but because he also teaches how to make furniture in some riverside communities. He passes on this knowledge and does not appropriate a culture."

Together, the two have already signed the Redes de Povos exhibition, bringing together hammocks from various ethnicities in a single space — and the project aims to go beyond Brazil, since indigenous peoples do not exist only here. "The indigenous hammock is ergonomic and super comfortable. And it shows how this manual work is done," says Hugo.

The dream yet to come

Hugo Ribas - Pira Sesá - Olho de Peixe. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2026. (Roberta Gewehr/CASACOR)

Hugo's biggest dream is still being formulated: a complete project in which every object — the rug, the coffee table, the wallpaper — has been designed by an indigenous person, with the name of each author stamped on the piece. "Not one indigenous piece and the others from big brands. Big brands can be part of it, yes, as long as there is a purpose. But it should be the name of each indigenous person on each piece."

Meanwhile, Hugo fulfilled another wish at Pira Sesá: to return to the villages everything that is there. The eucalyptus deck will be reassembled, and the structure of the little house was designed with exact measurements to fit into a specific village. "This project was not born here and does not die here. It already has a destination planned in the village".

traduzido por: OPENROUTER