Aleph Zero

Established in Curitiba by Gustavo Utrabo and Pedro Duschenes, the architectural firm Aleph Zero operates in areas ranging from furniture design, exhibitions, residential and commercial architecture to urban scale projects, for both public sector clients and the private sector. We seek for each project a unique atmosphere, formed through a collaborative process with artists, philosophers and specialized consultants. Since its foundation, Aleph Zero had its work recognized in national and international publications and awards.

About the name

According to Joseph Borges short story, the Aleph contains all possibilities, objects, and events, of past, present and future, from all perspectives, observable through a single point hidden in the attic of Carlos Argentino Daneri. It is the conformation of infinity, everything contained in an infinitesimal and recursive part, since the Aleph also contains an Aleph, which contains another Aleph, successively.

Zero is the invention of nothingness, the composition of the object does not exist, the perversion of numbers, it is the conformation of the void. Once reached it is so unstable, so close to doing rhizome that soon connects itself and acquires value. The zero is the minimum factor of possibility for all other things.

In set theory of Georg Cantor (1845-1918) Aleph is the letter used to denote the size (cardinality) of infinite sets. Aleph Zero is the first infinite cardinal, in which are included the prime numbers, integers, rational numbers, algebraic numbers, finite binary strings and finite subsets of any countable infinite.

Aleph Zero represents, conceptually, the differentiation of the infinite, of the indefinite, the possibility of making comparable what is immeasurable, to conform emptiness, potential for all events. More than void and infinity by themselves, we are interested in the different ways in which concepts can be decomposed and recomposed in general.

To us, Philosophy, Art, Literature, and Architecture itself, take part in a constant pursuit for distinct elements that intensify the critical reflection based on the understanding of reality, the capability to generate alternatives, and the pertinence of a certain desire to a specific place/time/culture.

There is no conformation a priori, instead, there is perversion. The design is understood as a process where dissonant forces are nourished and forced to collide, settling down new oblique ways which, therefore, are attacked and questioned, becoming after each cycle more consistent, until the moment when they begin to converge towards a common direction, consonant with the initially (re)imagined concept-desire