Leonetti Piemonte Architecture Threads a Slide and Timber Tribunes Through SumUp's Offices in Brazil

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This article covers topics related to Brazilian Architecture, Futuristic Workspaces, Urban Furniture, Open Building, Building Design, Architecture. In Brazil, a 6,600 m² fit-out for SumUp links floors with stairs, a fiberglass slide and stepped seating, treating circulation as the workplace.

In Brazil, a 6,600 m² fit-out for SumUp links floors with stairs, a fiberglass slide and stepped seating, treating circulation as the workplace.

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UNI Editorial published Blog under Brazilian Architecture, Futuristic Workspaces on Oct 10, 2026

Corporate interiors with slides, ping-pong tables and turf rugs have become so common that they barely register anymore. The play equipment usually reads as a perk bolted onto an ordinary floor plate. SumUp, a 6,600 m² office interior in Brazil completed in 2018 by the São Paulo practice Leonetti Piemonte Architecture, has its share of these props. What makes it worth a closer look is that the props are not the point. The real work happens in how the floors are stitched together.

The brief, as the project describes it, was to let work, collaboration, focus, rest and creativity sit side by side and feed each other. That is a familiar ambition. The answer is more specific than usual: a stack of office levels around a conventional lift core, opened up with voids, timber stairs, a sculpted slide and a large tiered seating stair. Movement between floors becomes the main social space, and the desks are left fairly plain. We think that division of labour is the smartest decision in the scheme.

Arrival, Identity and the Handmade Surface

Curved white reception desk in front of a wood-clad logo wall, beneath large round pendant lights and an exposed services ceiling

Close-up of a reclaimed wood wall with a logo and lettering formed from rows of protruding nails, lit from the side

Long communal table with red and grey metal chairs beside a reception counter, under linear pendant lights and exposed ducts

Exposed brick wall covered in handwritten names beside a standing-height table with white stools and a city view through the window

Workstation desks in front of a black wall mural of an astronaut and colorful hexagons, beside an exposed brick wall

The reception sets the material terms right away. A curved white counter stands against a wood-clad logo wall, with big round pendants hanging from an exposed services ceiling. Nearby, the company name is spelled out in rows of protruding nails on reclaimed timber. It is a small gesture, but it signals a preference for craft over glossy corporate signage, and that preference holds throughout.

The exposed brick walls do similar work. One carries handwritten names, and another sits behind an astronaut mural with colourful hexagons. These are the surfaces where staff leave marks. Elsewhere you might call that branding. Here it feels closer to graffiti that the office has decided to keep, and that is a more honest way to build culture into a fit-out.

Circulation as the Main Event

Black curved slide sweeping past potted palms, with a blurred person sliding down in soft daylight

Black curved fiberglass slide sweeping past a potted palm, with a wood-paneled lounge and blue curtain behind under exposed ducts

View from an upper walkway down into a double-height office atrium, with bare bulb pendants hanging on cords over planters and a wood floor

View down from a timber stair into a double-height lounge, with bare bulbs hanging on cables beside a window wall at daytime

Open stair descending beside a wall of black shelving boxes, with exposed ducts and round pendant lights overhead in a concrete-ceilinged office

White tile wall with a colored wall chart above a timber bench, beside a wood-tread staircase with a black steel balustrade

Mesh-floored mezzanine scattered with colorful cushions beside a brick wall and glazed railing overlooking a desk area in daylight

Black mesh-panel balustrade overlooking a white tiled kitchen nook, with bare filament bulbs hanging from an exposed concrete ceiling

The black fiberglass slide will get the headlines, and it is well handled. It sweeps past potted palms and a wood-panelled lounge as a solid sculptural object, not a playground part. The more consequential moves sit around it: a double-height atrium seen from an upper walkway, timber-tread stairs with black steel balustrades, bare bulbs dropped on long cords through the void, and a mesh-floored mezzanine scattered with cushions.

Together these elements break down the usual floor-by-floor isolation of a tower office. You can see people on the level below, hear the kitchen nook through the mesh balustrade, and choose between stair and slide. Vertical connection has been treated as an amenity in its own right, and in a building organised around a lift core, that is the hardest and most valuable thing to get right.

The Tribune: Stepped Seating as Civic Room

Timber stepped seating with books and bright cushions beside round tables, with wide windows overlooking the skyline in daylight

Wide timber stepped seating with colorful cushions and built-in book niches, flanked by glass-panel railings and a window wall

Training room with rows of yellow and white chairs facing built-in timber bench seating, concrete columns and a distant city skyline through the windows

Pantry with a long timber counter, metal stools, white tile wall, blue lockers and a stepped timber seating stair behind

Communal dining area with long wooden tables, red chairs and a potted tree, with stepped seating visible beyond the windows

The timber stepped seating is the project's best piece of furniture, and it barely counts as furniture. Wide treads hold bright cushions and built-in book niches, glass railings frame the edges, and a full window wall looks out over the skyline. It works as a lounge, a reading spot, an informal auditorium and a link between levels, all without changing its configuration.

The tribune also anchors the surrounding programme. The pantry, with its long timber counter, white tile and blue lockers, opens onto it, and the communal dining tables sit within sight. A training room repeats the idea at a smaller scale with built-in timber benches facing rows of chairs. The repetition makes the tiered section feel like a typology for this office, not a one-off flourish.

Food, Games and the Noise Budget

Open cafeteria with long timber tables, red and yellow metal chairs, a foosball table and linear light fixtures under exposed ducts

Open lounge with red metal chairs, round tables and blue ottomans beneath black linear light fixtures and exposed ductwork

Two blurred players at a ping-pong table beneath rectangular linear light fixtures, with city towers visible through the window behind

Break room with a blue ping-pong table in the foreground, yellow chairs behind it and square light fixtures under exposed ducts

Two red bucket chairs and a rainbow woven chair on a round green turf rug beside a whiteboard wall

Pantry corridor with white tiled wall, timber bench, slatted wood ceiling and blue lockers at the far end

The social areas follow a consistent recipe: long timber tables, red and yellow metal chairs, black linear light fixtures and exposed ductwork overhead. A foosball table and two ping-pong tables sit among the dining areas, and a round green turf rug with a rainbow woven chair marks a small brainstorming corner by a whiteboard wall.

None of this is novel, and the palette sits close to the generic tech-office look of its period. What saves it is placement. The loud programme is gathered near the kitchens and the city-facing windows, away from the desk rows. The tiled pantry corridor, with a slatted timber ceiling and a bench, works as a buffer between eating and working. Acoustic zoning shapes these spaces more than any decorative choice does.

Retreat, Booths and the Right to Be Alone

Navy high-back booth sofas facing a glass-walled meeting room, with colorful cushions hanging in a net above

Row of blue wall-mounted phone pods beside a curved passage with wood benches, lit by soft ceiling slots and daylight

Narrow corridor lined with blue-cushioned timber benches and rows of hanging cable pulls, with soft light from curved ceiling coves

Lounge behind a glass partition with leather sofa, cushioned armchairs and round timber coffee table, sheer curtains filtering daylight

Same lounge with the glass partition slid open, revealing blue phone-booth shells on a white wall and sunlight striping the dark rug

Meeting room with a wood-clad built-in bench with blue cushions, a projection screen, blue curtains and copper-toned pendant lights under exposed ductwork

Open offices tend to fail on focus, and this one puts real effort into compensating. Navy high-back booths face a glass meeting room. A row of blue wall-mounted phone pods lines a curved passage with timber benches. A narrow corridor of cushioned benches, lit from curved ceiling coves, works as a quiet backwater between noisier zones.

The lounge behind a sliding glass partition is a good example of flexibility handled modestly. Closed, it is a sheltered sitting room with sheer curtains filtering the light. Open, it connects to the phone-booth shells next door, and sunlight stripes the dark rug. The curtains in the meeting rooms, blue with copper-toned pendants, soften both the acoustics and the corporate edge.

Meeting Rooms in Glass and Brick

Black steel-framed glass meeting room on a polished concrete floor, with a corridor of pendant lamps stretching behind it

Meeting room with a long light wood table, mesh chairs and a whiteboard, with a glass wall opening onto the office and a city view

Timber standing-height table with metal stools beside glass-walled meeting room with bean bags, under exposed concrete ceiling and pendant lamps

Whiteboard-walled corner with a person writing, colorful stools, a wooden rocking chair and hanging curtains under an exposed ceiling

Exposed brick wall with a mounted screen and whiteboard, facing blue stools and a timber planter box holding green leaves

Formal meeting rooms are boxed in black steel-framed glass on polished concrete, so sightlines carry across the floor plate even when doors are shut. One room swaps the table for bean bags; another pairs a long light timber table with mesh chairs and a view out to the city. Standing-height tables sit just outside the glass and catch the conversations that spill out after meetings.

The less formal settings may get more use. A whiteboard-walled corner with colourful stools and a wooden rocking chair, and a brick wall with a screen facing blue stools and a planter box, offer places to think out loud without booking a room. They make the case that collaboration needs surfaces to write on more than it needs enclosure.

Desks, Terraces and the Skyline

Open office floor with rows of shared desks, monitors and black task chairs beside an exposed brick wall and wall-mounted screen

Desk cluster with monitors beside sliding glass door opening to a terrace with potted plants and a hazy city skyline

Glazed balcony with a grey cabinet, round bar table and stools, looking out over a hazy city skyline under cloud

Lounge of pale blue and grey modular seats on a wood floor, with a blue curtain and city view through windows

Lounge corner with a brown leather sofa, cane armchairs and high stools, set before floor-length gray curtains and a linear light

The workstations are deliberately unremarkable: rows of shared desks, monitors and black task chairs beside exposed brick and wall-mounted screens. That restraint is a strength. The energy of the project goes into the spaces between desks, so the desks can simply be good places to work.

The perimeter gives some of that energy back. Sliding glass doors open from desk clusters to a planted terrace, a glazed balcony holds a bar table over a hazy skyline, and pale blue modular lounge seating sits on timber near the windows. Daylight and views are spread across work and rest settings instead of reserved for executives, which says something about the company the office is trying to be.

Plans and Drawings

Floor plan drawing of an office level with a central elevator core surrounded by desk clusters, meeting rooms and a stair

Floor plan drawing of an office level with a central core, rows of desks and a curved stair and lounge area near the bottom

Floor plan drawing of an office level with rows of desks around a central core of lifts and a stair

Floor plan drawing showing desk clusters, glazed meeting rooms and a long table beside the central lift core

Floor plan drawing with a tiered seating area, a rooftop-style void and desk groups around the central service core

Floor plan drawing of an open office level with desk grids, small meeting rooms and a lounge corner

Section drawing of a multistorey office block with desks on each floor and one hatched floor band

Long section drawing showing office floors linked by diagonal staircases, with a hatched floor band across the middle

The plans show how conventional the base building is: each level is organised around a central core of lifts and stairs, with desk grids wrapping the perimeter. The variations are where the design lives. One level holds a curved stair and lounge, another the tiered seating and a void, others clusters of glazed meeting rooms and a long communal table.

The long section is the most telling drawing. Diagonal staircases cut across the floor plates and link levels that would otherwise be stacked in isolation. A hatched floor band marks the zone where the interventions are concentrated. You can read the whole strategy there: leave the tower's logic intact and puncture it in a few carefully chosen places.

Why This Project Matters

Much of SumUp's surface vocabulary, the red metal chairs, filament bulbs, exposed ducts and brick, belongs to a late-2010s office style that is already dating. If you judge the project on finishes alone, you will miss what it gets right. Leonetti Piemonte Architecture understood that in a multi-level tenancy, the real problem is vertical separation, and it put its biggest moves into the stairs, voids, slide and tribune that solve it.

For designers working on similar fit-outs, the lesson transfers well. Keep the desk floors calm and efficient, gather noise around food and views, provide genuine retreat, and spend the budget on the section. A stepped seating stair that doubles as library, auditorium and connector will outlast any trend in loose furniture.

SumUp by Leonetti Piemonte Architecture, Brazil. Area: 6,600 m². Completed: 2018. Photography: Sara de Santis.

About the Studio

Leonetti Piemonte Architecture

Official website of Leonetti Piemonte Architecture, one of the studios behind this project.

arqbrasil.com.br

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