Urban renewal isn’t just an ongoing phenomenon in large metropolitan areas across the planet, but has now also trickled down to small towns in the countryside. The recent inauguration of OCCA, a bar and restaurant in Cataguases, a small town in Brazil‘s largely rural state of Minas Gerais – mind you, it’s a four-and-a-half-hour car drive from Rio de Janeiro – bears witness to this trend. Here, a former warehouse for water bottles built in the 1980s has been transformed into a buzzing hub where to indulge in a drink or two and pizza. The building, which is situated in the town’s Granjaria neighbourhood, has been literally opened up, and the façade now features large windows which allow in floods of daylight.
OCCA‘s design, created by Nó Arquitetura, an architecture practice based in nearby Juiz de Fora, is a complete U-turn from the building’s industrial past. The premises measure 400 sqm. (4,306 sq.ft.) spread across two levels, and blend old elements, notably the ground floor cobbles, with new interventions, creating settings with a distinct retro look. A corridor, clad on one side with green tiles, embedding an elongated bench, and bar seating on the other, ushers guests into OCCA and straight to the bar. Covered in light blue glazed tiles and crowned with a timber and glass canopy, it’s fully equipped to serve all kinds of beers, cocktails and other drinks, but also distributes the pizza as it’s connected to the kitchen and stockroom located in the back.
A bright red spiral staircase, right next to the ground floor bathrooms, connects upstairs to a walkway, leading to the upper level which sits on top of the bar’s affiliated deli shop called OCCA empório, and which stocks a curated selection of meats, fish, cheeses and wines. The light-filled lounge-style setting features various comfy seating arrangements where to sit back and relax over drinks and a bite. The walkway also connects with office space, bathrooms, storage and other spaces in the back of the building. The menu at BOCCA is quite elaborate, listing not only pizza, but also various pasta dishes, risotto dishes, meat and fish dishes, sandwiches, kids dishes, and last but not least, a wide selection of beverages.
OCCA
Avenida João Inácio Peixoto 161 (Granjaria)
MG 36773-560 Cataguases
Wed-Sat 6pm-11pm
Sun 4pm-10pm
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
