Romullo Baratto is an architect and urban planner, PhD candidate in Architecture and Cinema at FAU-USP. Since 2019, he has been the Managing Editor of ArchDaily Brasil, and he also works as an architectural photographer. In 2017, he was a member of the curatorial team for the 11th São Paulo Architecture Biennial. Follow him on Instagram: @romullobf.
Agriculture and the food industry seem to have little in common with architecture, but it is precisely the overlap of these three areas that interests Ghanaian-Filipino scientist and architect Mae-ling Lokko, founder of Willow Technologies based in Accra, Ghana. Working with recycling agricultural waste and biopolymer materials, Lokko searches for ways to transform the so-called agrowaste into building materials.
For varied reasons, architects have been driven away from professional practice. Sometimes, however, they continue to design buildings in other media and support. Vinicius Libardoni is an Italian-Brazilian architect and artist who migrated from Autocad to metal engraving, passing through woodcut, and has been building imaginary architectures ever since.
Manhattan's dense landscape has just received another skyscraper, this time designed by a Portuguese Pritzker Prize Winner. At 137 meters high and with 35 floors, 611 West 56th Street, Álvaro Siza's first building in New York, was just completed, on the outside. The luxury apartment complex, which is also Siza's first work in the United States, has several facilities for its residents, such as a swimming pool, a spa, a gym, a playground for children and rooms for events.
Located amidst the vegetation, almost invisible to those who see it from the street, a jewel of modern Brazilian architecture is hidden in the São Paulo neighborhood of Jardim América. Casa Zalszupin, designed in 1960 by the Polish architect based in Brazil, Jorge Zalszupin, combines traces of local modernism with influences that the architect brought with him from Europe, notably Scandinavian architecture. In a recent photo series, Paul Clemence sought to capture through this house, "the architect's and designer's essence".
Led by architectural designers Khensani de Klerk and Solange Mbanefo, Matri-Archi is a collective based between Switzerland and South Africa that aims to bring African women together for the development of spatial education in African cities. Through design practice, writing, podcasts, and other initiatives, Matri-Archi — one of ArchDaily's Best New Practices of 2021 — focuses on the recognition and empowerment of women in the spatial field and architectural industry.
ArchDaily had the opportunity to talk to the co-directors of the collective on hegemonic space, informal architecture, technology, local idiosyncrasies, and the future of African and global cities. Read the full interview below.
African architecture has received deserved international attention in the last decade and one of the main responsible for this is, undoubtedly, Diébédo Francis Kéré, 2022 Pritzker Prize Winner. Born in Gando, Burkina Faso, Kéré graduated in architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin, in Germany. Today, he maintains branches of his firm, Kéré Architecture, in both countries, through which he seeks to develop works in the "intersection of utopia and pragmatism", exploring the border between Western architecture and local practice.
Known for involving community in the construction process of its buildings, Kéré and his office have developed works that go beyond the conventional limits of architecture and touch on themes such as local economy, migration, culture and equity. We had the pleasure and privilege of talking with the architect about some of his projects and his broader vision on architecture. Read the full interview below.
"I just wanted my community to be a part of this process," Diébédo Francis Kéré said in an ArchDaily interview published last year. It's hard to think of another phrase that so well sums up the modesty and impact caused by the newest winner of the Pritzker Prize of Architecture, whose work gained notoriety precisely for involving the inhabitants of his village in the construction of works that combine ethical commitment, environmental efficiency, and aesthetic quality.
The act of designing implies not only drawing, but building. It carries – or should carry – with it the same rigor and complexity as the execution on the construction site. That's what Francisco Rivas and Rodrigo Messina believe, partners at messina in | rivas, a São Paulo-based firm that has already gained national and international recognition, also selected among the best new practices of 2021 by ArchDaily.
Formed by a Brazilian and an Argentine who met in Paraguay while working at Gabinete de Arquitectura, the office is known for works such as The Chapel Ingá-Mirim, finalist for the Instituto Tomie Ohtake AkzoNobel Architecture Prize 2020 and the Oscar Niemeyer Prize 2020, and São Roque Sauna. More recently, it was elected the winner of the competition for the Maritime Museum of Brazil with the Argentine office Ben-Avid.
An architectural project conceived from the neoliberal system can only be hostile. That's what Father Júlio Lancellotti, an active figure in actions to support homeless people in São Paulo, says. His work at the head of Pastoral do Povo da Rua has deservedly received the attention of national and international media, as well as being frequently published on his own social networks, drawing the attention of the public and authorities to urgent issues of inequality, invisibility of the most vulnerable and the hostility of our architecture and public spaces.
"I'm interested in creating shapes that surprise people, that are bold," Ruy Ohtake used to say. With a career of over six decades and around 420 works built – almost three hundred only in São Paulo – Ohtake leaves a prolific and inspiring legacy to Brazilian architecture.
Besides São Paulo, his projects are spread over places as far away as Brasília, Mato Grosso do Sul and Rio de Janeiro, states where he designed and built residences, transport equipment, headquarters of cultural institutions, hotels, banks, sports arenas and corporate towers. In many of these, it is possible to recognize the architect's resistance to leaning towards the straight line, one that offers no surprises, and the desire to thrill with its shapes and colors.
From the content universe we made available in 2021, interviews are, without a doubt, among those in which we invested more time and research. Making room for the voice of architects and other professionals in the built environment is a great pleasure but also an enormous challenge, as it requires a lot of research and dedicated time from our team of editors. It is also rewarding as it puts us in contact with some of the most prominent talents in our discipline, who have been discussing issues such as cities, community, environment, democracy, sustainability, building technology and interiors.
One of Oscar Niemeyer's most famous projects, the iconic Copan building in downtown São Paulo, may finally have its restoration work started. After being negotiated for ten years, the project presented by a company hired by the building administration was partially approved by the Department of Historical Heritage (Departamento de Patrimônio Histórico - DPH) and the Municipal Council for the Preservation of the Historical, Cultural and Environmental Heritage of the City of São Paulo (Conselho Municipal de Preservação do Patrimônio Histórico, Cultural e Ambiental da Cidade de São Paulo - Conpresp).
Designed by Niemeyer together with Carlos Lemos, the building will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the beginning of its construction next year. However, it has been suffering from maintenance problems on the facade for almost two decades, such as infiltrations, falling tiles, disfiguring, detachment of concrete, and exposure of steel reinforcement, according to technical findings reported to the heritage agencies.
Designed by JPG.ARQ, MMBB Arquitetos, and Ben-Avid, the Brazil Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai offers a sensory experience that connects visitors of the World Expo with Brazilian biomes and cultural heritage.
People die in Squid Game. Lots of people. But while violence is one of the most appealing ingredients for the success (or failure) of a television show, that's not the only reason the series has become so popular worldwide. Pop culture, mesmerizing scenarios, and a plot full of social metaphors all contribute to this.
Available for streaming since September 2021, the Netflix series Squid Game “will definitely be our biggest non-English language show in the world, for sure,” and has “a very good chance it’s going to be our biggest show ever,” according to Ted Sarandos, the platform's co-CEO and Head of Content. The survivor thriller by director Hwang Dong-hyuk tells the story of a group of 456 people who are deeply in debt competing to win 45.6 billion won (around €33 million, $38 million) in prize money.
Naoshima, Teshima, and Inujima are the three main islands of an archipelago in Japan's Seto Inland Sea. What sets them apart from the many other Japanese islands is the large number of exceptional architectural works designed by some of the greatest architects and artists in the world. These projects are part of the Benesse Art Site Naoshima, an art complex idealized by billionaire businessman Soichiro Fukutake in the 1980s, composed of eighteen museums, galleries, and open-air installations.
Few places in the world have so many cultural and artistic facilities as the islands of Naoshima, Teshima, and Inujima, in Japan's Seto Inland Sea. Eighteen museums, galleries, and installations make up the Benesse Art Site Naoshima, a project idealized by billionaire businessman Soichiro Fukutake in the 1980s.
At the time, Fukutake invited none other than architect Tadao Ando to design the Benesse House Museum on the island of Naoshima, which went beyond an economic reboot to create a simpler, slower way of life - evidently for those who can afford it - far removed from the Japanese megacities.
Among the most renowned and well-established offices in the world, OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture, founded in the 1970s by Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp, and Zoe Zenghelis, is definitely part of the pantheon of the most famous. Curiously, although it receives large commissions and has already built several emblematic works in different countries, the office is often associated with an approach that is less focused on architectural design, going beyond the strict limits of the disciplinary field and encompassing other areas of practice.
Álvaro Siza's latest project in Portugal is a 16-meter high watchtower built with a lightweight steel structure featuring photovoltaic panels on the roof. This project is very different from most of Siza's works, both in terms of scale and materials. The watchtower is located in Serra das Talhadas, in the municipality of Proença-a-Nova, and is part of a larger project comprising several structures dedicated to ecotourism in the area, including the still unbuilt Miradouro do Zebro.
_OMA.jpg?1558539068 "Knoll Celebrates Bauhaus. © OMA / Photography by Fred Ernst")
