Estúdio Cajalima Stacks a Sandwich Library into a 60 m² Shop Inside São Paulo's Galeria Metrópole

Sanduteca calls itself a sandwich library, and the name works as a design brief. Estúdio Cajalima, led by Guilherme Cajaíba and Micherlane Lima, took a 60 m² unit inside Galeria Metrópole in República, São Paulo, and organized it around one idea: a small archive of tastes and seasonings from around the world, served across a counter and meant to teach as much as it feeds. The shop was completed in 2025, with civil engineering by AGGO Engenharia.

The concept is not what makes the project interesting. Plenty of food brands borrow the vocabulary of libraries and archives. The real achievement here is spatial. A deep, narrow footprint is split vertically with a light blue mesh mezzanine, wrapped in a deliberately limited palette of white grid tile, stainless steel and saturated red, and opened to one of the city's busiest modernist galleries. The result reads as one clear object rather than a fit-out assembled from parts, and it does this on a floor area most studios would treat as a kiosk.

A Shopfront That Borrows from the Gallery

Galeria Metrópole is a public interior: patterned stone floors, escalators, a constant stream of people cutting between streets. Cajalima answers it with a front that is almost entirely glass below and a perforated white metal panel above. The panel works as signage, screen and cornice at once, giving the unit a clean upper edge without competing with the gallery's own architecture.

The tiled counter runs right up to the glazing, so the red stools and the act of eating sit at the threshold. You see the program before you read the name. For a sandwich shop that depends on passing trade, this matters more than any graphic identity.

The Counter as Reading Table

The white grid-tiled counter is the project's spine. Tile is an obvious choice for food service, but the red grout turns a hygienic surface into a drawing: every joint is visible, and the counter reads as graph paper, a fitting surface for a space that wants to classify flavors. Red stools, a board of red peppers and warm sconces pick up the same color, so the ingredients and the furniture end up speaking one language.

Above, the blue mesh edge of the mezzanine floats over the counter like a shelf in a stack room. It lowers the ceiling where people sit and eat, which makes a narrow room feel intimate rather than cramped. The linear lights and the long fluorescent tube keep the vintage references from tipping into nostalgia; this is a contemporary space using old cues, not a period set.

About the Studio

Share Your Own Work on uni.xyz

If projects like this are the kind of work you want to make, uni.xyz is a place to publish your own, find collaborators, and enter design competitions.