Architect and urban planner André Schmitt dies in Florianópolis

André Schmitt, one of the most respected architects in the state of Santa Catarina, passed away this Thursday (12). Schmitt served as Secretary of Tourism in the 1980s and was a frequent collaborator of the IPUF (Florianópolis Urban Planning Institute), actively participating in public discussions and contributing his knowledge to society. On Florianópolis' anniversary in 2018, he received the Virgílio Várzea Medal of Merit, an honor awarded by the Legislative Assembly of Santa Catarina.

He was a principal at the firm Desenho Alternativo, founded in 1985 alongside Daniel Ceres Rubio. He was also one of the founders of the Santa Catarina regional branch of the Brazilian Association of Architectural Offices (AsBEA-SC).

Having participated in major urban and architectural projects, such as the Costão do Santinho Resort, the Praia Brava Urbanization Plan, and a master plan for the Florianópolis Botanical Garden, André was also part of the winning team in the national competition "Dias Velho Metropolitan Park – South Bay Landfill," organized by the city hall and IAB/SC in 1996. "The design gesture in the landfill project, of urbanizing and reconnecting the city to the sea, championed the good urbanism we strive for every day, with the necessary pursuit of more vibrant, diverse, and people-oriented spaces. It is an invaluable loss for Santa Catarina's architecture, but his ideas will always remain alive," highlighted Michel Mittmann, architect and municipal Secretary of Mobility.

There are various scales in the Architect's work;
Regardless of the SCALE of work, the “STARTING POINT” of a project is the same: a physical space for intervention (a site, region, or territory); a program of activities to be developed within that space; and the incidence of knowledge and “ideas”. While knowledge is represented by the “baggage” of information acquired through education, personal and professional experience (technical-scientific, socio-cultural, ...), “ideas” are “discovered” along the abstract path of perception and intuition.
It is then that the collision of these factors determines the moment when the blank paper begins to come to LIFE, giving rise to the first “LINE”.

André Schmitt, in Texts for Revista Arq. Univali.