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Unusual Door Designs from Brazil, Part 2: Garage Doors with Style

These look rather labor-intensive to build

By Rain Noe - September 23, 2015

in Architecture

Breaking News: Americans have, like, totally lame garage doors.

Brazilians, on the other hand, have awesome ones.

Here's your typical American garage door:

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Bor-ring.

Down in Brazil the garage doors have considerably more panache. In São Paulo alone there are a host of companies offering beautiful (and fully automatic) designs, like these models from Tok Door:

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These open-air models are by LK Portoes:

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Portec has got horrible photography that doesn't do their designs justice:

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I'm also impressed by how little space the automatic mechanisms take up compared to the typical rigs we've got up here:

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What do you think, my fellow Statesies—would these ever fly in America? My first instinct was "No" due to our high crime rate and the fact that a lot of these designs let you see inside, but São Paulo's no stranger to the rough stuff either, yeah?

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Herbert da Rocha

9 years ago

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Thanks for the article! It's great to have foreign friends sharing their view of some cultural aspect of life, that because we are so used to them, we just ignore when we pass by.
But how I already participated of some academic study about the Brazilian gates (here in Brazil they are known as "portões", that can be easily translated as gates or big doors), I believe that I can add two major aspects to what my fellow citizens already said here in the comments, that differentiate the Brazilian garage doors from the US version. First, the weather. In most regions of Brazil, during most of the year, the average temperature is higher the the average in US, what can easily explain the "openings". Second, most of the garage doors, seen on the photos, are more like... gates! Yes, differently from the US version, that have these doors attached directly to the houses, here in Brazil, at least on those photos, they are external to the house, making part of the walls that surround the land of the house. You can note that many of the gates end directly on the sidewalk and not in the garden. And that explains another aspect that can be seen on the photos, that many of the "doors" are reinforced with metal, because the criminal rates "down here" aren't low at all.
Again, I am just referring to the ones that we can see on the photos and not "all" the garage doors from our country.

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Rafael Donadio

9 years ago

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Great article.
I'm from Sao Paulo (Brazil) and I live in Australia since 2011 and I can contrast how we use the garage space.
The first thing is how secure or strong the door is. Aussie garage doors (same found in US) can be pulled out with 10% of the effort to destroy these doors here published. They are mainly manufactured using steel RHS (rectangular hollow sections – yeah they are bloody heavy). Believe or not my neighbour had his garage door stolen just because was made of Alu – they melt anything in Alu and sell the material in the Black Market. Lovely isn't it? And he was away on leave to enhance the whole experience.
The see- through thing believe or not is something desirable in a high crime area – if the bad guys are able to see what sits in the garage area they can "scan" and decide if there is any "business case" there…. – if there are only two boring cars and nothing else easy to get they might invest in another house. Culturally Brazilians don't have massive toolboxes sitting in the garage area or a nice workshop…they know the risk having these tools in a visible area.
"What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve" - works wonders there.

Standard garage = This terms does not exist there, no standard what so ever so you must have a custom garage door to fix the lack of proper building code.
Cheap labour – I can't even think quoting a garage door like that here in Australia…The labour cost in Brazil is so low that having a garage door like that is something feasible.
Sorry for my long post but is really nice when the technical and cultural aspects are so linked.

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Jackie Wyant

9 years ago

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100% agree with all the Brazilians that have commented here! I'm originally from the US, living here in SP for 4 years now. Comparing Brazilian (or SP) "garage doors" to those in the States is a bit like comparing apples and oranges.

As one commented said, what you are seeing in all of these is actually a large gate or door, not an opening to a US-style "garage". The door is part of the wall that surrounds the house. Think "fancy carport". Unlike US suburbs, you cannot simply walk up to someone's front door. You have the sidewalk, you have the surrounding wall, and you have the interior space - there is no well-manicured and never-used front lawn for people to walk through or toss their trash on.

As another commenter said, a "garage" space is not used in the same way here at all. No one keeps tools, work tables, or other items of worth in the same place they park their cars. It is simply a (usually) covered place to park your car, within the walls of your home.

And thirdly, in SP at least, the weather here is more than appropriate for "open" designs for the doors. It also helps with air circulation, and lets you see what's going on outside before you open the door. :-)

All that being said, I don't know why any of the designs here in SP wouldn't work well in warmer climates of the US. But it would be unlikely anyone would buy, because the garage has become a place we toss stuff and forget about it - and no one wants the neighbors to see their messy garage!

(Also, as someone else pointed out, the labor to install here in SP is MUCH cheaper than it is in the US, so that price could be an issue as well in the US.)

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Federico Cardeillac

9 years ago

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Brazilians are Americans

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David Appleman

9 years ago

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Is this actually a case where the American version is the more eco-friendly? A typical garage in the US is nearly 100% recycled/recyclable. Are these models in Brazil using rainforest species?

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- Thiago Lopes
  
  David Appleman
  
  9 years ago
  
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  Hi David.
  In general, these outdoor woodwork in Brazil are made with Lyptus (strong and cheap that grows full size in 5 years).
  I think its easier to buy rainforest wood and Brazilian stones in US than here in Brazil hehe.
  
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Mark Hemphill

9 years ago

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Fascinating. Certainly beautiful, but I do wonder about the weight. Because we do have "standard" garage door sizes in the US, it seems a shame to ship that much weight around. I wonder if bamboo would be strong enough for suburbs (where the perceptual security is basically sufficient)?

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Juan Cano

9 years ago

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These are so pretty! I could see them in places where it's not so cold. I'm in the Northeast, and my first thought was all the cold air and snow that would go into the garage. I don't think the style would match any home that I've ever seen in the US; there's not a lot of modern-looking homes here, unless you're un Miami beach or LA. The video on how the door goes up & down is great. Seems like a simpler system. I once changed the springs on my garage door, and the safety warnings basically say you could kill yourself putting them up. Not injure, but die.

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Jason Pokines

9 years ago

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I had to look hard to make sure that wasn't a picture of my garage door. I think I even have those lights. My only defense is that my wife and I are still trying to decide how to dress it up. We're thinking craftsman style and a pergola.

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Ramon Yip

9 years ago

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The crookedness on the 635 on #5 just bugs me just enough that I want to go and make those numbers vertical.

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