Studio
Copacabana
Oslo . Helsinki
2025
Type: Short film
Collaborators: Oslo National Academy of the Arts
Exhibition: Oslo National Academy of the Arts, 2025
Photo credit: Studio Copacabana
The short film "I Met Myself at Brion: A Love Letter to Architecture" takes place at Tomba Brion (1968–1978), designed by the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978) for the Brion family in San Vito d’Altivole, near Treviso. Through the interplay of autumn light and shadow, the noise of life transforms into silence, creating a space for reflection and self-discovery. In this sublime experience — like a ripple across the Venetian lagoon — architecture reveals its enduring power to inspire transformation across generations.
Ongoing research initiativ
Type: Art gallery / footbridge
Collaborators: Suzana Martins, Solveig Sandness
Publication: Mark Magazine (53), Architizer, ArchDaily
This project proposes a symbiotic combination of art gallery and public garden footbridge. By situating the gallery over the Passaic River, the design not only celebrates the city's maritime heritage and connectivity while also highlighting the river’s economic and urban potential. This project aims to enhance the city's cultural, economic, and environmental value by blurring the boundaries between private and public, permanent and temporary, indoor and outdoor spaces. The introverted gallery spaces, illuminated by numerous skylights, are complemented by carefully positioned windows throughout the building framing a number of Newark’s landmarks: an architectural promenade inspired by Japanese principles of ‘obstruction and revelation’
2025
Type: Transformation
Collaborators: Trine Berre, Proffbygg Terka
Publication: RTF - Rethinking The Future
Photo Credit: Studio Copacabana
This transformation project is taking place in the iconic building complex Westye Egebergsgate 1-4 in Oslo, designed by the Norwegian architect Victor Schaulund (1896-1979). The project aims to amplify both a sense of spatial continuity and the presence of natural light in one of the corner flats. Two new openings were made in the original structure, thereby creating a new circulation route following the façade that provides privileged views of Oslo’s northern side. A system of sliding doors was incorporated into this new route; a solution inspired by the Shoji room divider principle of traditional Japanese architecture. A “multifunctional furniture wall” containing storage spaces, wardrobes and the kitchen was designed and extended the full length of the apartment. In contrast to these wooden elements, the remaining walls and ceiling were painted white to become a canvas for the play between light and shadow which, at times, is performed with the assistance of the leaves on the majestic neighboring birch trees.
2025
Type: Curated Exhibition
Collaborators: Oslo National Academy of the Arts
Exhibition: Oslo National Academy of the Arts, 2025
Publication: ArchEyes (photographic report)
Photo credit: Studio Copacabana
With special thanks to: Pavlina Lucas, Lina Mariann Friis, Kjetil Haarr Smedal, Emil Kristoffer Gustafsson, Ståle Rue, Annika Isaksson Pirtti and Erik Wester
Inspired by the work of the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978), the exhibition explores architecture’s capacity to evoke presence and self-awareness—an approach to which the author and his studio are deeply committed.
For Martins, Scarpa’s masterpiece, nurtured through countless drawings, celebrates not only the timeless bond between Giuseppe Brion and Onorina Brion, but also life itself as a poetic juncture between shadow and light—symbolized by the vesica piscis geometric motif at the entrance of his lyrical necropolis.
2016
Type: Pavilion
Publication: Nytt Rom (55) and Divisare
Photo credit: Carl Ählström & Studio Copacabana
The Skrea Pavilion is located on Sweden’s west coast, within a plot bordered by farmland, forest, and the ocean. Due to budget constraints, a single carpenter was commissioned to construct the entire building without any heavy machinery or cranes. Elevated from the ground, the wooden structure appears to float above the landscape, minimising its impact on the terrain. Inspired by the local Swedish farm typology, sliding doors on either side of the building regulate the transparency and privacy between the complex and its surroundings. These doors, combined with the pavilion's configuration, create adjustable view frames, fostering a dynamic interplay between the inner courtyard and the expansive landscape. An atrium with an open skylight allows visitors to fall asleep under the canopy of trees, swaying in the by ocean winds.
2023
Type: Short film
Collaborators: Nina Sue and Liv Nanna
Exhibition: International exhibition "Breath 2024" - CICA Museum, South Korea
Photo credit: StudioCopacabana
The short film Vøringsfossen & The poem that never came out of my mouth explores the following questions: how do nature, art, and architecture contribute to self-awareness? What happens to our modus operandi when we finally deal with our issues from the past? This art film flourishes from the dialog between the dramatic Vøringsfossen waterfall landscape and the bridge area designed by the Norwegian architecture office Hølmebakk Øymo.
2025
Type: Villa (Paper Project)
Collaborators: Trine Berre
Would it be possible to build a floating palace in a small gap between two buildings in the middle of the city? While one side of the plot faces a beautiful, solitary birch tree, the other overlooks majestic trees rooted in the same park where the remains of the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch rest.
A single continuous wooden furniture element, composed of storage, steps, and seating areas, weaves together different domestic rituals and restructures the void of this urban gap, creating a sense of interconnectedness with the surrounding nature. The most “luxurious” feature of such a palace is the possibility of sleeping outdoors while observing the starry sky, in a bed placed on the roof terrace.
2017
Type: Short film
Exhibition: Official Selection - Cinema Urbana Film Festival 2019. Brasilia, Brazil
Publication: Cinema urbana: memórias em construção
The Foz do Douro breakwater is an organic structure that both connects and separates the Atlantic Ocean and the Douro River. Shaped to challenge the forces of nature and allow human interaction, its concrete forms constantly shift in a never-ending dialog between light and shadow. Both an extension and a boundary of the city of Oporto, where time and memory are reinforced by the brutality and gentleness of its elements, the Foz do Douro breakwater stands out as a powerful place to manifest continuity, closure, confrontation and silence.
Information
Studio Copacabana explores the potential of architecture, art, and landscapes to foster self-awareness through both a sense of interconnectedness and sublime atmospheres.
Through architecture, film, art practice, academia, and exhibitions, the studio investigates the interplay between unity and authenticity in seeking to cultivate a profound sense of presence and belonging.
Studio Copacabana is inspired by the award-winning architecture practice lundhagem architects in Oslo: an office dedicated to enhancing the relationship between architecture and landscape. Lucas Martins was part of the lundhagem architects team from 2004 to 2026 and founded Studio Copacabana as a realm for developing his academic and artistic research.
Lucas Martins, PhD, architect, lecturer, founding partner.
lucas.martins@studiocopacabana.no
Suzana Filipecki Martins, project manager, founding partner.
suzanafmartins@studiocopacabana.no
For press inquiries and lectures, please contact: info@studiocopacabana.no
Selected publications
ArchDaily
Cultural Centers Beyond the Building: 6 Unbuilt Projects Integrating Landscape.
2026
Rethinking The Future
A Small Corner in the Yellow Tower
2025
ArchEyes
The Brion Cemetery by Carlo Scarpa: Architecture, Symbolism, and Silence
(photographic report included in the article)
2025
Architizer
Art Path
2024
Divisare
Skrea Pavilion
2024
Creating Through Mind and Emotions
The sublime in architecture: Wright's transcendentalism
2022
NYTT ROM
Skrea Pavilion
2017
Selected exhibitions &
Film Festivals
Tomba Brion in the Autumn
Oslo Academy of the Arts
Norway
2025
Vøringsfossen & The poem that never came out of my mouth
International exhibition
Breath - CICA Museum
South Korea
2023
Dourorganic
International Film Festival CINEMA URBANA - Building Memories
Brazil
2017
Selected lectures
Norsk arkitektur og arkitektonisk kultur 1880– 1980
UIO - University of Oslo
2024
Phd thesis
Nature and spirit: Arne Korsmo and Frank Lloyd Wright's organicism - University of Oslo
2023
Teaching
Oslo Academy of the Arts
2025-2026
ArchDaily
We’re excited to see our project Art Path featured on ArchDaily in “Cultural Centers Beyond the Building: 6 Unbuilt Projects Integrating Landscape.”
Apr 2026
Architecture and Storytelling
In Architecture and Storytelling, directed by John Stephen Ellis, Lucas Martins reflects on Villa Stenersen, designed by Arne Korsmo.
Feb 2026
Rethinking The Future
We are pleased to have our transformation project “A Small Corner in the Yellow Tower” published in Rethinking The Future.
Jan 2026
ArchEyes
ArchEyes - our photographic report on Carlo Scarpa included in the article “The Brion Cemetery by Carlo Scarpa: Architecture, Symbolism, and Silence”.
Dec 2025
Exhibition I Met Myself at Brion: A Love Letter to Architecture
I Met Myself at Brion: A Love Letter to Architecture - a meditative dialogue with the architecture of Carlo Scarpa.
Dec 2025
Venice Study Trip - KHIO
Oslo National Academy of the Arts - Venice Study Trip 2025.
Oct 2025
Oslo National Academy of Art
Lucas Martins joins the Oslo National Academy of Art (KHIO) as a guest teacher for the Transformation course, 2025.
Mar 2025
Architizer
The Art Path was published in Architizer.
Dec 2024
Siminar UIO - University of Oslo
Participation in the seminar “Norsk arkitektur og arkitektonisk kultur 1880– 1980” .
Dec 2024
Divisare
The Skrea Pavilion was published in DIVISARE.
Oct 2024
CICA MUSEUM
The short filmVøringsfossen & The poem that never came out of my mouth forms part of the international exhibition “Breath 2024”, curated by the CICA Museum in South Korea.
Jul 2024
PhD - University of Porto
Lucas Martins successively defended his PhD thesis ‘Nature and Spirit: Arne Korsmo and Frank Lloyd Wright's Organicism’ at the University of Porto.
Jul 2023
Creating Through Mind and Emotions
The academic article ‘The sublime in architecture: Wright's transcendentalism’ by Lucas Martins, Ana Tostões and Rui Jorge Garcia Ramos was published in the book “Creating Through Mind and Emotions”..
Jul 2022
Building Memories
Dourorganic featured in the book ‘Cinema urbana: memórias em construção’, published by Editora Universidade de Brasília.
Dec 2020
NYTT ROM e-25
A description of Lucas Martins`s experiences in Oporto during his PhD studies at the Faculty of Architecture in Porto was published in the digital magazine NYTT ROM e-25.
Jul 2017
CINEMA URBANA
The short film Dourorganic was selected for inclusion in the international film festival “CINEMA URBANA, Building Memories” in Brasília, Brazil.
Oct 2017
NYTT ROM 55
The Skrea Pavilion was published in the Norwegian magazine NYTT ROM.
Dec 2017
MARK Magazine 53
The first draft of the “Art Path” project was published by MARK magazine.
Dec 2014