At the end of each year, we issue a call for submissions for graduation projects from our Portuguese-speaking readers. Through this, we aim to select the most interesting proposals to present inspiring visions and foster debates for our entire audience.
For this edition, we received 466 proposals from all over Brazil, as well as cities like Lisbon and Luanda. Before presenting the 30 selected by our editorial team, it should be noted that this list does not necessarily feature the "best" projects received. Instead, it highlights the works we found most well-presented, graphically engaging, and with themes that seemed particularly relevant for a final graduation project. Rather than simply resolving a design program satisfactorily, we believe that a final graduation project—as a culmination of a student's efforts during the transition from academia to professional practice (while, importantly, still part of their academic journey)—should raise questions and provoke discussion about the proposed theme.
It is worth noting that several submissions did not follow the guidelines of the call and were disqualified or lacked sufficient material for evaluation.
Below is our selection* of the best final graduation projects from Portuguese-speaking countries, accompanied by descriptions provided by their authors.
From Building to Territory: A Theater that Invades the City
Author: Daniella Gomes
Advisor: João Sodré
Institution: Universidade São Judas Tadeu - São Paulo/SP
This work emerged from the tension provoked by two aspects: first, urban voids (parking lots and underpasses), a phenomenon linked to the growth of the city to adapt to new dynamics and car-oriented mobility. Second, art as a way of reclaiming urban space, specifically experimental theater—an action that extends beyond walls. The convergence of these two points finds its collision site in Bixiga, a neighborhood of resistance and cultural identity, the cradle of theater and arts, yet also a place disrupted by city growth due to major avenues connecting the center and the East Zone—an urban articulation that ignored the existing context, fracturing the local scale. This project attempts to address the conflict between the different scales coexisting in the neighborhood through an experimental theater exploded across its vacant spaces. It consists of two support lots spanning the performance venue: the underpass of the Júlio Mesquita Viaduct, with the street serving as the connecting thread. The goal is to explore the simplest form of locomotion—walking—integrating the city into the building.
See the full project here.
São Pedro Psychiatric Hospital: From Invisibility to Integration
Author: Carol Vasques
Advisor: Marta Silveira Peixoto
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Porto Alegre/RS
The stigmatization of mental illness dates back to the late 18th century, when madness began to be perceived as a disease worthy of study and treatment. Asylums were used worldwide as tools of social control, preventing patients from interacting with society. Invisibility was the primary objective of these spaces. The São Pedro Psychiatric Hospital was the first psychiatric treatment institution in southern Brazil. Since the psychiatric reform, the site has undergone a continuous process of abandonment. Financial and political difficulties, combined with a lack of infrastructure and permeability, make it impossible to restore the complex, which holds significant historical, cultural, and real estate value. This project proposes integrating the hospital with both the city and society across two scales: urban and architectural. At the urban scale, it proposes redeveloping the area by extending the existing street network toward the hospital. At the architectural scale, the hospital complex is transformed into a mixed-use facility by creating a Community and Cultural Center, cultural venues, and private workspaces. History and architecture are thus converted into tools for dismantling stigma, reclaiming space, and fostering social integration.
See the full project here.
Up Close and From Within: New Perspectives on the Vila Progresso Community
Author: Agnes Lúcia da Silva Santos
Advisor: José Maria de Macedo Filho
Institution: Universidade Católica de Santos - Santos/SP
The proposed intervention takes place in the Vila Progresso community in Santos-SP, one of the city's highest neighborhoods. A plan with a series of guidelines for the rehabilitation of Vila Progresso was developed, ultimately focusing on the detailed design of a community-use educational building, which presented greater complexity due to its program and strategic location. The landscape is the central theme of this site. To preserve the views, the facility is designed below street level, consisting of four interconnected, vertically staggered blocks.
The building is proposed as public and inviting. The terraces serve as a large green viewpoint that extends the urban geography, ensuring permeability and the continuity of public space. This acts as a buffer between neighborhood life and school activities, offering leisure space for residents and connecting the institution with the community. As is common throughout the neighborhood, the natural and urban landscape becomes a reference point for the entire building. Pathways, interstitial spaces, and classrooms remain in constant contact with the scenery, leaving behind the fences and walls that traditionally stereotype educational institutions as closed spaces.
See the full project here.
Intervention and Urban Design Project for the Tietê Floodplain
Author: Luiz Felipe do Nascimento
Advisor: Fábio Mariz Gonçalves
Institution: School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo - São Paulo/SP
The project presents a unique opportunity to partially mitigate some of the inequalities present in São Paulo. As a catalyst for structural change in how the extensive floodplains adjacent to the city center are occupied, it could promote residential density in an area well-served by public transit and public facilities. As a new urban fabric—in an area that currently acts as a void of urbanity—it could facilitate access for North Zone residents to the center and the South Zone, where the metropolis's service, employment, and entertainment hubs are located, through new road and transit connections.
The proposal for this region includes reclaiming public spaces, increasing population density, and introducing mixed-use zones within the newly designed urban grid. The creation of several bridges and road connections aims to transform the deficient relationship between the North Zone and the city center, reshaping travel patterns and open spaces in the area: transitioning from a city designed solely for vehicle flow to a more inclusive, multimodal city, with active mobility as the main driver of this transformation.
See the full project here.
Traversed
Author: Raissa Gattera Begiato
Advisor: Antonio Fabiano Jr.
Institution: Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas - Campinas/SP
On the edge of greenery and water, at the margins of society. The Jardim Vera Cruz neighborhood, located deep within Jardim Ângela in the South Zone of São Paulo, is a territory of dichotomies and struggles—an anti-urban territory whose basic survival needs are sidelined by the boundaries of a divided world.
The project acts as a bridge that reclaims the space of right, reinforcing the idea of urban vitality, diversity, and plurality between mind and nature. It achieves this by intensifying the natural setting through geometric and abstract construction lines—man-made artifacts of the place—rooted in the effective value of the collective project as an artifice (craft) of human thought.
Transposition transformed into a pathway, encounter, and exchange. The path serves as part of the symbolic construction of the territory. An urban intervention, a human invention. A space redefined by the act of walking, which surmounts not only the physical barrier between urbanization, greenery, and water, but also the invisible barrier between the individual and the environment. It is a line that responds to the needs of a single point and, subjectively, becomes the project itself. Through its simple articulation of overlapping pieces, the urban infrastructure itself becomes an instrument for constructing both the landscape and the city.
See the full project here.
Marmita: New Typologies for Self-Construction
Author: Ygor Santos Melo
Advisor: Fernando Sérgio Okimoto
Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista - Presidente Prudente/SP
Our peripheries are being self-built. Weekends of intense labor result in housing lacking comfort, posing various safety risks, and almost always featuring an unpleasant aesthetic for those who live there. The reckless and irresponsible guidelines adopted for the urbanization and industrialization of this struggling nation have resulted in peripheral growth based on the self-construction of housing—whether made of orange hollow bricks or plywood shacks. The norm is exile and a total lack of civic infrastructure.
There is, however, a professional specialized in housing, theoretically skilled in discussions on poverty and human development in cities: the architect. This agent should be capable of finding solutions for the homes of everyday Brazilians. Why, then, are they not in the peripheries, where most Brazilians live and where most homes need assistance? Why is it unappealing to venture beyond the large fortified enclaves and high-value avenues of the formal city? This project proposes a critical response to these questions, seeking to show what Brazilian peripheries would look like if, historically, architects had engaged with the reality of our people. The same materials, the same techniques, but a different peripheral landscape.
See the full project here.
The City on Another Scale
Authors: Luis Rossi and Nicolas Le Roux
Advisors: Luiz Recamán and Eugênio Queiroga
Institution: School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo - São Paulo/SP
The city of São Paulo, like many others in Brazil and around the world, undergoes urban transformation processes that fail to address the daily life of its inhabitants. Urban regulations and actions taken by public and private entities on the urban fabric have been formulated according to a fragmented logic disconnected from the site, outlining generic design strategies that prioritize immediate profit over long-term sustainable development.
"The City on Another Scale" is a project that investigates the threshold between Architecture and Urban Planning through the discipline of Urban Design, seeking to understand how to incorporate this scale of city design into urban policies and the architectural profession. A multidisciplinary historical analysis was conducted, culminating in an Urban Design project for a "generic" region of the city, in Vila Sônia, São Paulo. There, the impact of high-density construction resulting from current urban production methods was tested on a typical urban fabric to propose a new, more integrated, and holistic form of urban transformation, capable of producing a fairer, more humane, and sustainable city with context-driven solutions.
See the full project here.
Coliving Espírito Santo: New Housing Possibilities for the Contemporary Western City
Author: Gabriel Nardelli Araújo
Advisor: Maurício Campomori
Institution: School of Architecture of the Federal University of Minas Gerais - Belo Horizonte/MG
Lifestyles have changed. We live in a world where consumerism, loneliness, individualism, and intolerance are increasingly present. In this scenario, Coliving Espírito Santo arises from the idea that architecture should support human connections rather than hinder them, as is often the case today. Architecture must create space for collective building and adapt to changing human needs over time.
Consequently, the building's common areas were designed like streets—equipped with infrastructure and open to reclamation by residents, without predetermined uses. The private units are organized to converge toward these common areas, emphasizing community life. These units do not follow typical real estate market standards; they are more generous to better adapt to each resident's lifestyle. Furthermore, their slabs are supported by steel trusses whose voids allow for the passage of electrical and plumbing installations, enabling the reconfiguration of wet areas and providing flexibility.
In line with this flexibility, the building is already designed for a car-free future. Its garage was planned to be easily converted to other uses, ensuring comfortable environments in all cases thanks to the environmental strategies adopted.
See the full project here.
The (Im)permanence and (In)security of Women in the City
Author: Júlia de Freitas Correia Lyra
Advisor: Juliana Michaello Macêdo Dias
Institution: Universidade Federal de Alagoas - Maceió/AL
Historically designed for (and by) men, the city—understood as an active agent in the production and reproduction of social relations—is organized around the dichotomy of the male-public versus female-private. This study analyzes the position of women in the city and, assuming male dominance in the urban sphere, seeks to understand how gender disparities—and the resulting sense of insecurity and vulnerability of these hidden subjects—create a distinct urban experience for men and women. In short, the project aims to understand and map the spaces of fear that prevent women from fully experiencing the city, identifying urban characteristics that foster gender-based violence and inhibit their presence. To achieve this, and understanding the discomfort surrounding these issues, anonymous listening mechanisms were implemented to establish indirect contact with the subjects. From these accounts, a comparative outline of the anonymously described experiences was created. This is perhaps the project's greatest contribution: charting paths on how to design spaces that ensure women's autonomy within urban structures.
See the full project here.
Drainage and Landscape: Proposal for Intervention in the Joaquim Cachoeira Creek Sub-basin
Author: Paula Cerqueira Lemos
Advisor: Eugênio Queiroga
Institution: School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo - São Paulo/SP
As a product of the sanitary and functionalist paradigm of urban water management, large retention basins ('piscinões') are scattered across all tributary micro-basins of the Tietê River, many located next to informal settlements. Although problematic, this retention basin network demonstrates that addressing metropolitan flooding requires public investment in peripheral, often neglected areas.
To revise this paradigm, new approaches are explored, using the concept of green infrastructure to examine the multifunctional possibilities of urban water management. Here, bridging drainage with the conceptual field of Landscape emerges as an opportunity to improve the quality of space.
To demonstrate the application of these concepts, the Joaquim Cachoeira creek sub-basin, located between the municipalities of Taboão da Serra and Embu das Artes, was selected for a drainage plan. From this, a design exercise was developed for one of its micro-basins in the Jardim Clementino neighborhood, exploring water-sensitive urban design theory across the different public scales that make up the urban environment.
See the full project here.
[Re]constructing Memories
Author: Jaqueline Ruivo Rabello de Lima
Advisor: Ricardo Ruiz Martos
Institution: Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo - São Paulo/SP
The decline of urban industry leaves behind several underutilized areas in city centers. This reality is visible in the Mooca neighborhood, which for over a century was driven by industrial activity and has undergone significant spatial transformations in recent decades, highlighting the need to rethink this territory.
The project proposes reclaiming the railway edge of the Mooca region, linking the remnants of deindustrialization, underutilized industrial complexes, proposed buildings, and future interventions designated by the Urban Operation. Through physical restoration and functional conversion, it aims to recover the area's industrial memory, encouraging its preservation and transmitting the local historical culture and identity. Furthermore, it seeks to rehabilitate idle areas, foster new gathering spaces, and offer a revitalized area to the city.
See the full project here.
ESCAPE-NON-ESCAPE: Heritage as an Escape Valve
Author: Natalia Castro
Advisor: Diego Anibal Portas
Institution: School of Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro/RJ
The territory surrounding the IFCS (Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences) and the block between Rua do Teatro and Rua Sete de Setembro represents a gridlock: in the city's old boundary, certain conditions are indisputable. The Cultural Corridor project is indisputable, as are the large facilities, lot boundaries, blocks, and squares. How can we produce a contemporary architectural layer that discusses these issues, mediating the relationship between public and private, permanent and ephemeral, reality and fiction?
In this work, I propose a reinterpretation of the preserved forms in downtown Rio de Janeiro, moving away from the aesthetics of facades and roofs to focus on alignments, rhythms, the deep and narrow proportions of the lots, the lower scale, and the homogeneous materiality. Similar to an archaeological excavation, the discussion here centers on revealing the constructive dimension and spatial production of the territory, revisiting heritage through contemporary interventions to provide new aesthetic, political, social, and cultural perspectives.
See the full project here.
Global Arachnids
Author: Sol Ztt (Driely Sol Zanatto)
Advisor: Gilfranco Alves
Institution: Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul - Campo Grande/MS
The Global Arachnids project sought to develop architecture for people transitioning away from physical, stationary homes due to technological evolution. Moving from oral culture to media and digital societies, the backpacker is the adopted persona, using technology for mobility and survival. These 'hippies of cyberspace' carry their homes with them virtually and instantaneously. The proposal is a structure that can be built by anyone with access to technology who wishes to live on the move. It consists of a retractable geodesic dome designed using Rhinoceros and Grasshopper, where parameters can be adjusted based on personal needs. The methodology adopted was physical and digital prototyping, culminating in a 1:1 scale final prototype. It also includes a video tutorial on YouTube to share the construction process online, making it accessible to everyone. This project, offering a flexible and affordable mobile machine for living, was subsequently adopted as an elective course at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul and led to an exhibition and workshop at the Mato Grosso do Sul Museum of Contemporary Art in 2018.
See the full project here.
Caiçara Metabolism: Urban Operation in Peruíbe
Author: Matheus Duarte Pardal
Advisor: José Maria de Macedo Filho
Institution: Universidade Católica de Santos - Santos/SP
Caiçara Metabolism is an urban operation in the city of Peruíbe, SP, that interprets the Preto River as an axis driving the infrastructure-landscape binary. At the urban planning scale, the project is based on the circular metabolism paradigm (ecology), considering the potential flows of matter, water, energy, and people circulating through the territory. At the urban design scale, the Caiçara Metabolism is projected as a river-park-city, permeating the urban fabric, draining the land, and providing landscape to the territory. At the architectural design scale, the project draws on the principles of Japanese Metabolism regarding organic growth and territorial regeneration, proposing a 'Caiçara neighborhood system' hypothesis with waterfront housing. Finally, the project also explores a design for a socio-environmental condenser (an intermodal terminal and cultural/ecological center), which serves as a key hub for Caiçara Metabolism, merging the flows of matter and people along the Preto River and the Santos-Juquiá railway line.
See the full project here.
On Landscape: Reading Spaces Through Walking
Author: Thiago Peng
Advisors: Lucas Fehr and Francisco Petracco
Institution: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - São Paulo/SP
The uncontrolled and rapid growth of the city has created spaces that are invisible to the population, turning their backs on the city's main protagonist: people. These scars are clear in the Brás neighborhood. While one side is bustling with people, the other is filled with run-down warehouses and depots. The area has become a non-place, devoid of welcoming qualities and urbanity. At the same time, these urban 'voids' present significant potential to establish relationships with both people and the surrounding urban grid, giving the site meaning. The project addresses this by proposing a new perspective of the city through a newly established vertical level. Combined with the integration of the proposed programs, this creates a pathway where walking is no longer just a way to traverse the city. Walking becomes a medium of expression and intervention, allowing the individual to be immersed in the space—making the act of walking a way to analyze and observe the city.
See the full project here.
Urban Artery
Author: Timóteo Emerick
Advisor: Lidiane Espíndula
Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Gerenciais - Manhuaçu/MG
When we talk about the environment, almost everyone imagines a fresh natural setting with the sound of water and birds. However, when the topic is the city, the opposite comes to mind: mountains of concrete in the form of buildings, and a wave of stress circulating among them to the sound of horns and sirens. For a long time, humans have built spaces that consume nature, with urban rivers being the prime example. Cities grow around rivers, occupying their banks and turning their backs on them, using them as open sewers and landfills. Yet, there are ways to resolve this problem by restoring the urban biological corridor, along with local flora and fauna, linking the daily life of citizens to the natural cycle of the context. This approach begins by removing sewage and direct pollution from the river, followed by a process of reclaiming urban life. By utilizing the natural environment to reduce urban stress through leisure, sports, education, and cultural spaces, the project completely transforms how people perceive the city.
See the full project here.
Transient Housing: Supporting Housing Vulnerability and Disaster Impacts / Caxias do Sul - RS
Author: Tainara Comiotto
Advisor: Ana Elísia da Costa
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Porto Alegre/RS
Rapid urbanization disconnected from spatial planning has driven the disorganized growth of Brazilian cities, which now face major challenges related to lack of infrastructure and limited access to land. The unequal and unjust use of land in our cities creates a catastrophic scenario regarding the impacts of natural disasters—a reality that is increasingly frequent in people's daily lives.
As municipalities struggle to overcome this logic of socio-spatial segregation, there is a significant rise in precarious housing and displacement due to disasters. Cities are ill-prepared to provide adequate emergency shelter for families, both in post-disaster scenarios and in supporting housing policies aimed at upgrading precarious settlements. In this context, municipalities clearly need to provide shelter and protection to these vulnerable families while communities rebuild.
This project proposes a permanent public facility for transient housing as an alternative shelter in emergency situations. The concept of 'housing' is understood broadly, encompassing not only physical shelter but also socio-educational spaces, thereby challenging the inadequate practices commonly adopted by Brazilian municipalities.
See the full project here.
SYNC - From the Everyday to the Event: The Architecture of Shared Use
Author: Pedro Dal Molin
Advisor: Cláudia Pianta Costa Cabral
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Porto Alegre/RS
The global economy is moving toward shared use, which, in essence, is the human inclination to maximize resources in society. Sharing is an ancient response, manifested in our tendency to divide food, shelter, socialize, and live in groups, forming societies, villages, and cities. If this concept is not new, why talk about it now? Because there is a paradigm shift, a powerful new element: the virtual environment. Manifested through networks and apps, the virtual represents information technology—the data cloud that accompanies us.
From the Everyday to the Event. The use of information technology in architecture offers the possibility of maximizing programmatic variety with great ease of access. When we use music and movie streaming services, we have access to a wide variety of content. It would be more laborious, and expensive, to obtain each piece of content individually. If streaming services are media catalogs, could a building be designed as a program catalog?
SYNC is the architecture of the information age. A shared-use building operated through an app, proposing a diverse program that updates in real time: lodging, retail, workspace, events, and more. A project synchronized with its users.
See the full project here.
Between Object and City: Autonomy and Resistance in the Field of Architecture
Author: Júlia de Carvalho Carreiro
Advisors: Diego Portas and Guilherme Lassance
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro/RJ
How could a radically abstract architecture manifest itself as a strong expression of a series of choices that does not aim to be spectacular, but aspires to activate a certain consciousness and debate about the forces and relations that shape contemporary city dynamics?
The objective is to use architectural form as an instrument to confront the logics of urbanization, asserting that the creation of limits intrinsic to form is a political gesture of separation and understanding of the environment in which it is inserted. The materialization of the boundaries that articulate spaces is an action always referenced by a political idea—the creation of the 'space between.' This large-scale intervention addresses the discussion of a new monumentality that, rather than being a mere icon, suggests a reaffirmation of the symbolic power of the city over the generic and alienating immanence of urbanization.
This investigation lands in downtown Rio, recognizing its current urban condition of subordination to the economic logics of consumption, its historical character of public and political representation, and the potential of the monumental design of Avenida Presidente Vargas as a basis for investigating civic activation through a new temporal layer of city design derived from architectural form.
See the full project here.
Infrastructural Landscape and Ecosystemic Regeneration - Santa Quitéria-CE
Author: Guelba Paiva
Advisors: Marcos Favero and Pierre Martin
Institution: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro/RJ
The Caatinga, Brazil's only exclusive biome, is more than 50% deforested. It illustrates, like no other, how deeply humans are intertwined with their environment. However, due to a background of limited opportunities and pervasive hunger, the people of the Sertão region continue to be among the poorest in Brazil, living rustically in many respects. This proves that we have not yet learned to coexist with the semi-arid climate.
Responding to the desertification in the interior of Ceará and the current demand for clean energy, this project is guided by the principles of 'Landscape as Infrastructure,' acting in the socio-technical sphere in a balanced, meticulous, and effective manner. Addressing concepts of identity, territory, and resistance with nature-based solutions, the project provides a device that meets local landscape, infrastructural, and socio-economic demands. Through a solar harvesting system supplying irrigation to the territory of Santa Quitéria, in the interior of Ceará, the goal is to initiate a cycle that will culminate in the reconstruction and full enhancement of the ecological landscape, providing better conditions for the population.
With the potential to rebuild a productive landscape, the project's outcome allows the tectonics of the landscape to be shaped to transition from seasonal to continuous flow. Through regeneration, it creates a fertile territory, upgrading the lives of residents across all spheres. In addition to mitigating the effects of climate change and ensuring sustainable socio-economic development, this alternative aims to restore deforested areas of the Caatinga biome while preserving local culture and identity.
See the full project here.
Infrastructure, Monument, and Landscape
Author: Igor Machado
Advisor: Guilherme Lassance
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro/RJ
“Once, a city was divided into two parts...” One where natural monuments achieved sublime status, and another where they were left to banality. In both realities, architecture was not the channel for a sublime experience.
Thinking of the sublime as a rupture of the everyday void, this work seeks to combat the effects of the generic expansion of urban centers—which has affected us for over 100 years—and, as an antidote, use mundane monuments with their potential defamiliarization to construct a possible sublime experience in Rio's peripheral landscape.
The unique case of Rio de Janeiro lies in its natural landscape. Although present in various parts of its territory, it only became an icon in the wealthy periphery, while in the poor periphery, its natural monuments became mundane.
Looking at the case of the Turiaçu Quarry and the power transmission line running alongside it, a new opportunity to interpret this territory is revealed. This corridor operates on another dimension—non-everyday, marked by its scale—and calls for a monumental experience that is currently inaccessible to its neighborhood. “This corridor of intense metropolitan desire is like a landing strip for the architecture of new collective monuments.”
See the full project here.
IN BETWEEN – Social Housing as a Condition for Realizing the Right to the City
Author: Matías Kim
Advisor: Stamatia Koulioumba
Institution: Universidade Anhembi Morumbi - São Paulo/SP
“The favela was shown to me as a problem, and yet it is the solution.” John Turner's classic definition of a favela considers the architecture produced by its residents—self-construction—to be an effective solution to the housing deficit they face. The morphology, occupation processes, and free atmosphere of the favela inspired this project, which attempts to reproduce a dense yet organized and “livable” housing development that respects the pre-existence of self-construction. The project is located in the Dersa Community, in the southern part of the Jabaquara district in São Paulo. Both the surrounding territory and the site of intervention are characterized by informal housing, with residents excluded from the Right to the City, meaning they are denied the right to legal housing and, consequently, access to urban resources that would allow them to reshape the city. In this way, the Dersa Favela is remodeled, injecting urbanity along with cultural, art, and leisure facilities alongside the proposed housing. It is hoped that these added elements will transform the existing context, merging into a single, indissoluble urban object so that the collective right can be realized.
See the full project here.
Women and the City: Essays on Equality
Author: Isabella Rosa
Advisors: Gilberto Belleza and Ricardo Ramos
Institution: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - São Paulo/SP
The city does not belong to women, and consequently, neither do their bodies. Upon stepping into the street, a woman seems forced to accept the risk of her body becoming as public as the space she occupies. Data on sexual violence in São Paulo highlights this issue: 2,790 reported cases in 2017, 593 of which occurred in public spaces.
Along the Baixo Augusta axis, the project tests three types of interventions related to the quality of the female experience in the city. These are developed based on an analysis of six urban aspects: vitality, block length, sidewalks, street furniture, transparency, and lighting. The first intervention takes place in "memory lots"—locations of reported assaults—where strategies are proposed to discourage violence. The second addresses the fact that women walk more than men, developing urban furniture elements designed to keep sidewalks well-lit. The third, on a larger scale, addresses the intangible aspects of inequality: raising public awareness about gender issues and encouraging community participation in urban decisions. Consequently, it takes shape as a cultural-educational center and a community hub.
See the full project here.
City Club
Author: Débora Boniatti
Advisor: Marta Peixoto
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Porto Alegre/RS
The dissatisfaction of Porto Alegre's residents regarding their relationship with their river is widely known. The city's stance—denying and turning its back on what could be its greatest asset—raises numerous questions about the reasons for and opportunities to reconnect citizens with the Guaíba. Despite initiatives in other areas of the city-river interface, the Cais Mauá region, located in a highly visible area, has remained closed and inaccessible over the years.
In tandem with this, another concern relates to Porto Alegre's climate. We experience a wide temperature range and well-defined seasons; winter days are harsh, while summer days, combined with excessive humidity, are extremely unpleasant and hot. In a peak-temperature January, the fact that many people lack the time, opportunity, or money to go to the beach made me realize the need for quality public pools—a place where anyone could easily access and enjoy themselves in a pleasant, cool setting.
Naturally, these paths converged, and the solution to both challenges was found in a single intervention: the City Club.
See the full project here.
An Architectural Expression on Reconciling the Individual with the Home
Author: Talita Caroline de Souza
Advisor: Rodrigo da Silva Rodrigues
Institution: Universidade Paranaense - Umuarama/PR
.jpg?1544804972)
This work is an exploration of meaningful space in architecture. The vehicle for this exploration is a transitional shelter for the homeless in Umuarama, PR.
Homelessness is a constant struggle for individuals and communities, triggering displacement and fragmented lives. The theoretical discussion of the topic supports the idea that the experience of a home is intimately related to the individual. Beyond the objective definitions of the term, homelessness can create a sense of placelessness, loss of identity, and self-worth.
The dilemma of current shelters is that they are often designed purely from a practical standpoint, while the user's perception of the space is rarely considered. This utilitarian architecture can lead to a degrading experience for homeless men and women.
For these reasons, the exploration focuses on how to create a sense of shelter, rather than highlighting the negative feeling of homelessness. It is believed that if the architecture of a shelter is designed with sensitivity to the user's perception, it can play a significant role in the sheltering process, reclaiming the cues of the home experience and its full potential to foster human well-being.
See the full project here.
(in)transitions - Between Fixed Elements and Flows Along the Marginal Botafogo
Author: Matheus Amorim Gomes
Advisor: Alexandre Ribeiro Gonçalves
Institution: Universidade Estadual de Goiás - Goiânia/GO
This work discusses mobility in the city, specifically regarding the Marginal Botafogo expressway in Goiânia, GO. It stems from the concept of impermanence, understood as the intermittent flow established in urban space. The study area was treated as a space that generates messages marking the city's physical and social aspects, but above all, as a place constantly transformed by its residents.
The analysis of this context led to the interpretation of Marginal Botafogo as a territory between territories, shaped by both spatial and cultural dimensions—a place that transcends its physical structure, hosting a web of meanings in flux. Consequently, the way people move through the site daily was a key factor in the project's design.
These different movements along the expressway led to the design of a linear park that reintegrates the city's North and South regions. Transversely, the intervention proposes elevated pathways where the presence of the human body is central to the program's conceptualization. Each crossing is designed around the user and their daily routine to foster a sense of belonging and minimize displacement.
See the full project here.
White Memory, Black Heritage: An Intervention in the Slave Quarters of the Fazenda São Bernardino
Author: Matheus Ribeiro Cunha
Advisor: Luciano de Topin Ribeiro
Institution: Universidade Estácio de Sá - Rio de Janeiro/RJ
The project highlights the need for new perspectives on contemporary space-making, seeking to reverse the devaluation of memory and its impact on our society. This work critiques the omitted narrative of Black memory and how this erasure is reflected in the spatial construction of cities. The Fazenda São Bernardino attracts many visitors. Currently a set of ruins, it stands out for its unique beauty in the Nova Iguaçu – Tinguá region. However, the main attraction of the complex is the Big House (Casa Grande). As a result, visitors are often unaware of what lies beneath the elevated level of the manor: the slave quarters (senzala) and the mill. This level difference in the plantation's design projects segregation beyond spatial boundaries, but this physical aspect also involuntarily contributes to erasing this memory. The project is an exercise in deconstructing and redefining memory and space. Based on philosopher Jacques Derrida's concepts of spatial deconstruction, the proposal reflects on the meaning of the place itself.
See the full project here.
SÍTIO PYRANHENGA: Heritage and Conservation
Author: Hugo Calheiros Rodrigues
Advisor: José Antonio Viana Lopes
Institution: Unidade de Ensino Superior Dom Bosco - São Luís/MA
Based on the diagnostic phase of the Integrated Conservation Plan by Australian James Semple Kerr (from ICOMOS), a cultural diagnosis of Sítio Pyranhenga, located in the Parque Pindorama neighborhood of São Luís, MA, was conducted to compile a Technical Heritage Dossier. The goal was to understand the values built there, defining it as an asset of cultural significance. A historical timeline was defined for this isolated asset, spanning from its founding as a pre-industrial complex (estate house typology), through its productive abandonment, the interventions by visual artist Virginia Eftmié, to its current administration as the headquarters of the philanthropic organization CEPROMAR.
Retrospective studies of these interventions were carried out using BIM technology, fostering an understanding of its physical structure and transformations. Its socio-cultural complexity has given rise to unique anthropological spaces, but has also created cultural conflicts in its contemporary symbolic representation, leading to its current status of not being officially listed as heritage. Thus, heritage evaluation through document analysis, diagrams, and local testimonies, contrasted with the anthropological dimensions of the site, made it possible to draft the asset's cultural justification and statement of cultural significance, which can guide the building's listing and future safeguarding strategies.
See the full project here.
From Space to Place: A Study on the Cement Factory in Perus
Author: Luan Poiani
Advisor: Luis Mauro Freire
Institution: Universidade São Judas Tadeu - São Paulo/SP
The cement factory, opened in 1924 and listed as heritage by Conpresp in 1992, is privately owned and remains central to numerous discussions about the importance of industrial heritage. Currently, the factory is deteriorating, having remained abandoned since its closure in 1986. During the initial research phase, the industrial complex revealed a powerful architectural presence associated with a network of narrow open spaces that give the site its unique character. While the physical conditions were favorable for the project, it was the connection between the population of Perus and the atmosphere of the site that motivated the reactivation of the factory space.
The university project is structured around three layers that connect with the neighborhood and evoke the memory embedded in the cement factory's buildings and open spaces. Each layer offers a different reading of the built environment, ranging from the highly fragmented and bustling ground floor to the open, organized walkways connecting the blocks. While assuming a metropolitan character, the university respects the neighborhood's characteristics, seeking to highlight and recognize the documentary value of the former industrial complex.
See the full project here.
_______________________________________
*The selection is listed in random order.
Since you are here, take the opportunity to look at the lists from previous years:
Os melhores trabalhos de conclusão de curso do Brasil e Portugal em 2017
Os melhores trabalhos de conclusão de curso do Brasil e Portugal em 2016
This article was written by Victor Delaqua. The translation is powered by AI.
