When purpose meets personality: Gabriel Rosa's meteoric rise in architecture

Gabriel Rosa's first participation in CASACOR São Paulo, in 2024, still carried the eagerness of a young professional who had just found an opportunity capable of transforming his life. His wish was that people would get to know his work, that his name would become recognized. More than that, he was willing to make that showcase mean something for the career he was beginning to build. At 22, freshly graduated, he left there with the title of the youngest Black architect to be awarded by the show.

Today, at 25, he looks back at that moment with a different perspective. "I was in a big hurry to make people know my work," he says. What came next taught him that recognition is not sustained by speed alone. "I began to understand that everything was work. People would only recognize my work based on the good work I delivered."

Lavabo Terra Sagrada, por Gabriel Rosa na CASACOR São Paulo 2024. (Theggrau/CASACOR)

Gabriel's trajectory has indeed advanced quickly. In 2019, still in the Architecture and Urbanism program at Universidade Nove de Julho, he began developing his first projects. In 2022, he opened his own office; the following year, he completed his graduation. Then came work with influencers, his second participation in CASACOR São Paulo, in 2025, and recognition from Forbes Under 30. In the midst of all this, he built a language that does not fit easily into a single definition.

"I have many references," he says. And they come from quite different places: fashion, music, cinema and, evidently, architecture. His style brings together contemporary, Mid-Century Modern and Afro-modernism, a movement with which he says he has increasingly identified. The result is a sophisticated architecture that does not hide the person behind it.

A well-woven repertoire

Gabriel Rosa - Adega Legado. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2025. (Vitor Guilherme/CASACOR)

Gabriel talks about fashion with the same naturalness he brings to architecture. He enjoys dressing well and observing what is happening in that universe: the colors, the silhouettes, the textures, the combinations. For him, there is not such a great distance between the way someone chooses an outfit and the home they choose to inhabit. "Our home is an extension of who we are," he often tells his clients.

The very way of dressing, according to him, can offer clues about a client's personal taste. It does not mean that the client will necessarily follow Paris or Milan fashion week, he jokes, but it is from this observation of dressing that the client will feed other fields of their gaze. A color, a texture, a print can cross from one universe to another.

Gabriel Rosa - Adega Legado. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2025. (Vitor Guilherme/CASACOR)

His creative process follows the same logic. When he puts together a moodboard, Gabriel does not intend to simply gather materials: his table is populated by fabrics, images, colors and textures. Before drawing, he seeks to see the whole. "I like to first understand if the entire composition pleases me in terms of the composition of colors, textures," he explains. The project takes shape from there.

The gaze belongs to the author

For him, authenticity is not just an accessory quality: it is, above all, a working tool. "I think we are artists," he affirms. And, for an artist to create, some degree of freedom is necessary.

The architect believes that the market can be quite rigid and that there is no single formula for standing out. "I think people connect with people, and clients connect with personalities," he says. Building that personality takes time, he acknowledges, but the path lies precisely in not trying to mold oneself too much to what already exists.

Gabriel Rosa - Adega Legado. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2025. (Vitor Guilherme/CASACOR)

At CASACOR, this takes on another dimension. Designing for a client means negotiating with desires, needs, preferences, and limits. At the show, the client is the designer himself. The counterpart of this freedom is a greater demand on himself: with each edition, Gabriel wants to surprise himself with his work all over again.

The first CASACOR had yet another effect. Gabriel began to realize that there were people following his work not only as a professional reference, but as a possibility of a path. He receives messages from students who say that, upon seeing him in that space, they began to believe that they could also get there. "I see my work today as a spokesperson so that other people can also cross those doors," he says. This dimension also appears in the Núcleo Amandla, created by Gabriel to support and empower entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities.

Stories that take shape

Gabriel Rosa - Lavabo Terra Sagrada. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2024. (MCA Estúdio/CASACOR)

At CASACOR, this willingness to work from a story appears in the two projects he signed. In 2024, in the Lavabo Terra Sagrada, Gabriel turned his gaze to the tradition and spirituality of the Himba people, inhabitants of northern Namibia deeply connected to the land. The 27 sq m space was built from earthy colors, handcrafted ceramics, geometric patterns, and natural materials. The following year, in the Adega Legado, the starting point was wine, often associated with European tradition, presented through its history in the African continent, where it was already part of rituals in ancient Egypt more than five thousand years ago. The 33 sq m space took on the air of a sanctuary, with stained glass, arches, and wood in warm tones.

Now, he begins to experiment with this same logic on a different scale. The office is preparing a jewelry collection, bringing fashion and design even closer together. "This jewelry collection is also a moment for the market to see my perspective on the micro, and to try to bring fashion a little more into my design universe."

The next design

Gabriel Rosa - Adega Legado. Projeto da CASACOR São Paulo 2025. (Vitor Guilherme/CASACOR)

There is also a larger project: Gabriel wants to take his work abroad and put Brazilian architecture on another radar. It is a movement that has already begun, he says, and one that he intends to deepen in the coming years. But when he speaks about the future, what stands out is the way he talks about freedom.

Asked about his greatest professional dream, Gabriel thinks for a moment and answers: "I think my dream is to be able to be a free artist." He imagines that artist who scribbles anything and is acclaimed by the world. The idea fits with everything that came up throughout the conversation: the defense of authorship, the taste for mixing references, the desire to experiment with other areas, and the refusal to fit into a ready-made formula. This combination is what makes his current moment so interesting: Gabriel seems less concerned with proving he has arrived than with discovering where he can still go.