Located in the historic mountains of Minas Gerais, Casa dos Pilares is a weekend retreat that pays homage to colonial bandeirista architecture. The house features a massive stone plinth holding up eight independent concrete pillars that support a wooden roof. The walls are not structural; they are glass or movable wooden shutters. The genius of Mirella Mansur here is the elevation of the living space. By lifting the house off the wet ground, she solved humidity issues while creating a shaded courtyard below. The house won the IAB-MG (Institute of Architects of Brazil) Award in 2017.
A public commission that solidified her status, the Water Memorial is a park and museum dedicated to the region’s water crisis. Mirella Mansur designed a series of parabolic concrete canals that collect rainwater and channel it through a filtration garden before feeding into a public swimming pool. The structure looks like a ruined Roman aqueduct wrapped in Brazilian vegetation. It successfully transformed a utilitarian piece of infrastructure into a civic gathering point.
It is impossible to discuss Mirella Mansur without comparing her to the late Paulo Mendes da Rocha (the "Paulista Brutalist"). While Mendes da Rocha dealt with heroic, monumental infrastructure, Mansur deals with intimacy and ecology. Where Mendes da Rocha was loud and sculptural, Mansur is quiet and textural. mirella mansur
Furthermore, while female architects like Carla Juaçaba focus on ephemeral, lightweight structures, Mirella Mansur digs her heels into the earth with heavy mass. She represents the "masculine" volume of brutalism filtered through a distinctly feminine lens of domesticity and nurturing landscape integration.
Currently, Mirella Mansur is working on her most ambitious project yet: the Cais do Sertão Museum extension in Recife. This project involves a massive suspended concrete ribbon that will snake over a mangrove swamp without touching the water, allowing the tidal ecosystem to survive beneath it. Located in the historic mountains of Minas Gerais,
Additionally, she has been invited as a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design for the Fall 2025 semester, where she will teach a studio titled "Brutal Tropics: Designing for Deluge." This marks a significant internationalization of her work.
| Year | Milestone | Details | |------|-----------|---------| | 2014–2015 | Discovery & Early Work | Scouted while still in high school, she began with local runway shows and catalog shoots for Brazilian brands such as C&A and Renner. | | 2016 | International Breakthrough | Signed with a European agency (Wilhelmina Milan) and landed her first overseas campaign for Mango during Milan Fashion Week. | | 2017–2019 | High‑Fashion Editorials | Appeared in editorial spreads for Vogue Brazil, Harper’s Bazaar Brazil, and Elle. Her striking cheekbones and natural, sun‑kissed look made her a favorite for summer‑edition shoots. | | 2020 | Cover Spotlight | Featured on the cover of Vogue Brasil – Summer Issue, photographed by renowned fashion photographer Mário Testino. | | 2021–2022 | Runway Highlights | Walked for designers like Alexandre Herchcovitch, Ricardo Almeida, and internationally for Versace at Milan Fashion Week. | | 2023 | Brand Ambassadorship | Became the global brand ambassador for Natura, Brazil’s leading cosmetics and personal‑care company, fronting their “Sustainability & Beauty” campaign. | The genius of Mirella Mansur here is the
In a field historically dominated by men—especially in structural engineering and heavy concrete—Mirella Mansur has blazed a trail. She is the founder of "Mulheres do Concreto" (Women of Concrete), a mentorship collective that brings together female structural engineers, formwork carpenters, and architects in São Paulo.
She has publicly criticized the "starchitecture" system that often sidelines female designers. According to Mansur, "You see a 'Niemeyer' building, but you never see the female team that calculated its dome. Mirella Mansur doesn't want fame; she wants credit for the labor."
Her site visits are legendary within the industry. She is known to climb scaffolding in steel-toed boots to check the rebar placement before a pour, demanding that her female interns do the same. This hands-on leadership has produced a generation of younger Brazilian women who are not afraid of getting their hands dirty in the service of high design.