A monolithic washbasin in green granelito, with copper tapware and a wooden tray built into the body of the piece, a self-initiated project designed and rendered in 2026 for the student category of the Deca product design award.
The starting point was granelito, a terrazzo-like flooring and countertop material deeply embedded in Brazilian architecture and almost always read as institutional. The project asked what happens when it stops being a surface and becomes the whole object, a solid, thick-walled basin where the aggregate shows on every face, including the sides and the cut edge.
The basin is asymmetric by use. On the left, a recessed channel carries the spout and the two valves, keeping the water and the act of turning it on away from the resting area. On the right, a dark wood tray drops into a rebate in the granelito and sits flush with the rim, with an elongated cutout that works as a finger pull. It is the only removable part of the piece, the thing that gets wet, gets washed and goes back.
Copper appears everywhere the hand lands: spout, valves and the cups that sit on the tray. The valves are knurled (a detail borrowed from instruments rather than from sanitary fittings), giving grip to a wet hand and creating a fine texture against the open grain of the granelito. Copper darkens over time, so the piece ages along with use instead of resisting it.
The piece was designed to cantilever off a solid wood shelf, with no cabinet underneath, leaving the thickness of the granelito visible on all four faces. The whole development was done in 3D modelling and finished in rendering, with material, lighting and framing studies.
