Mariana Maisonnave's 'Limiar' walks CASACOR visitors from a dark volume into the light

CASACOR Santa Catarina 2026 in Florianópolis: Deca commissioned a 170 m2 space, and Maisonnave's studio wanted a stronger play of shadow and light than its usual work.

The visit starts inside a dark, enclosed volume, then opens step by step into bright rooms — the Portuguese word 'limiar' (threshold) staged as a walkable sequence.

Visitors move from an introspective dark volume through living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, lit by daylight and a light curtain by day and indirect lighting at night. The central wall is clad in Castelatto's Brick Matéria — architectural concrete with recycled ceramic sanitaryware developed with Deca — beside natural stone, tree-trunk furniture and Brazilian design from Zalszupin to Niemeyer.

The Brick Matéria surface used on the central wall, developed with Deca from recycled sanitaryware, received an iF Design Award in 2026.

At CASACOR Santa Catarina 2026 in Florianópolis, architect Mariana Maisonnave built "Limiar Deca", a 170 m2 space created at the invitation of Brazilian bathroom brand Deca — her seventh participation in the exhibition. The concept takes its name from the Portuguese "limiar", threshold: the visit begins inside a dark-toned volume designed to make arrival introspective, then opens gradually to natural light, lighter surfaces and the surrounding landscape.

Living area, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom follow one another as a sequence, each offering a different kind of moment — a pause, a gathering, a view. By day, natural light moves across the surfaces while a light curtain keeps an almost continuous connection between interior and landscape; at night, indirect lighting becomes the main strategy. The studio calls this stronger play of dark and light a new addition to its visual vocabulary.

The material story carries the same idea of renewal: the central wall is clad in Castelatto's Brick Matéria, developed with Deca, an architectural concrete incorporating fragments of recycled ceramic sanitaryware — discarded bathroom fixtures given a second life as a wall surface with its own marks. The palette adds limestone-effect porcelain, velvet-textured plaster, raw stone bases and tree trunks built into the furniture, set with Brazilian pieces across generations — from Zalszupin's and Zanine Caldas's armchairs to Oscar Niemeyer's Rio rocking chair and Domingos Tótora's Água table.

The entrance was deliberately dark and enclosed so the later brightness registers as a change in perception, not just decoration.

Light itself is the material: daylight and a sheer curtain shape the rooms by day, indirect lighting reshapes them at night.

Deca's product world enters through the wall — recycled sanitaryware turned architectural concrete — rather than through visible fixtures.

Furniture was integrated so modernist and contemporary Brazilian design reads as part of the architecture, not a styling layer.

A threshold can be the whole concept: sequence a visitor from dark to light and the brand's product story — renewal, in recycled ceramic — lands without a single sign.

The space opened with CASACOR Santa Catarina 2026. The Brick Matéria surface at its center had already received an iF Design Award in 2026, and for Maisonnave's studio the darker-to-lighter sequence marks a new note in its visual vocabulary after seven participations in the exhibition.