The best graduation projects of 2020

Every year, we host a call for graduation projects open to our audience in all Portuguese-speaking countries. Through this, we aim to select the most interesting projects to present inspiring visions and debates for the fields of architecture and urbanism.

The selection is based on projects that are well-presented, graphically engaging, and address themes we find thought-provoking and timely for a final thesis. Rather than simply resolving a project satisfactorily, we believe a graduation project—by condensing the student's efforts during the transition from academia to professional practice (while still remaining part of their academic journey)—should raise questions and stimulate discussion on the chosen topic.

In this edition, we received 427 submissions from Brazil, Portugal, and Mozambique, distributed as follows:

• 52.6% from the Brazilian Southeast region;
• 30% from the Brazilian South region;
• 8.6% from the Brazilian Northeast region;
• 5.5% from the Brazilian Central-West region;
• 1.7% from Portugal;
• 1.4% from the Brazilian North region;
• 0.2% from Mozambique.

In this edition, {CURA} will award the authors of the selected projects with scholarships for the virtual complete Method {CURA} course.

It is worth noting that submissions that did not follow the guidelines or lacked sufficient material for evaluation were disqualified. We thank all the students who submitted their projects and wish them the best of luck in their professional lives!

Finally, here is our selection* of the 40 best graduation projects from Portuguese-speaking countries, accompanied by the descriptions submitted by their authors.

Dialogue in Ancestral Space - Tekoá Jatai'ity . Mbyá Guarani

Author: Branca Torres
Advisors: Maria Ayara Mendo Perez and Diego Portas
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro/RJ)

This project seeks to contribute to the visibility of Indigenous peoples not only in academia but also in the professional field of architecture. Recognizing their reference knowledge of worldview, relationships, and spatial construction is a viable path toward producing an architecture aligned with our history.

As a participatory process, the project faced complex challenges but managed to gather as much knowledge as possible during the available period of exchange. Moving forward, it offers a foundation for future projects to be developed in the Jatai’ity village and other communities. The goal is to share this material with the Guarani people as a token of appreciation for their openness and to contribute to whatever they wish to build.

See the complete project here.

Centers of Cultural Expression and Leisure: Architecture as Event

Author: Gabriela Luiza Mira
Advisor: Thiago Albino Maso
Institution: Centro Universitário Católica de Santa Catarina (Joinville/SC)

The goal of this project is to explore the interaction between culture and architecture as an event. Critiquing the concentration of Joinville's cultural venues, the project proposes dismantling the centralized building and dispersing it across various points in the city. This provides visibility to local activities, drawing on Bernard Tschumi's theories of architecture as event and disjunction, with Parc de La Villette as the main reference. This is a conceptual graduation project.

See the complete project here.

Infrastructure in Deep Brazil: Possibilities for Vale do Ribeira

Author: Gabriel Lisboa
Advisor: Fabio Mariz
Institution: Universidade de São Paulo - FAUUSP (São Paulo/SP)

This project is a travel diary through the southern coast of São Paulo—an immersion into a collection of almost forgotten, little-explored, and uniquely rich towns, rivers, forests, and villages!

Although the Vale do Ribeira is only a few hours' drive from downtown São Paulo, its diverse landscapes and contexts carry paradigmatic traits of rural, deep Brazil. These traits include low demographic density, the largest continuous areas of native Atlantic Forest vegetation, and a significant presence of traditional communities.

In light of COVID-19, the project proposes a mobile healthcare system integrated with a water transport network along the Mar Pequeno Canal, which crosses the municipalities of Iguape, Cananéia, and Ilha Comprida—a key transport axis for the region. In addition to healthcare and tourism facilities, the design includes boats, piers, docks, lighthouses, ports, berths, and everything related to this maritime universe.

See the complete project here.

Creative Connections: A Technological Center for the 4th District

Author: Magali dos Santos 
Advisors: Eliane Constantinou and Carlos Fernando Bahima
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS (Porto Alegre/RS)

The 4th District tells the story of the city, as this is where Porto Alegre's economy and industry first developed. However, urban growth and a lack of planning triggered the area's decline and abandonment, leaving behind countless neglected and precarious buildings.

The new master plan proposes cultural, educational, innovative, knowledge-generating, and technological programs to establish the district as a creative hub.

Within this context, the 4th District Tech Center serves as a hub for urban innovation research and creation, driving transformation and new businesses by connecting universities, companies, startups, and innovation agents. The project repurposes an existing structure—the former Guahyba textile factory—to restore industrial heritage. It articulates the post-industrial territory, the vacant factory complex, and the proposed building through physical restoration and adaptive reuse, preserving manufacturing memory while conveying the local history and identity of the neighborhood.

See the complete project here.

Requalification of the Nova Iguaçu Railway Axis: A Metropolitan Perspective on Urban Trains

Author: Rafael de Souza Silva
Advisor: Paulo Sérgio Alves Aguiar
Institution: Universidade Estácio de Sá - UNESA (Niterói/RJ)

This project proposes a requalification of the Nova Iguaçu railway axis, seeking to stitch together a city divided since its founding.

The municipality's development began around the railway line with the construction of the orange barons' mansions, foreshadowing the socioeconomic division that would solidify years later. Today, this stretch is known as the Japeri branch line, the physical source of the local expression: 'THE RICH SIDE AND THE POOR SIDE.'

Following the Integrated Strategic Urban Plan developed for the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Chamber, a set of guidelines was launched for the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region (RMRJ) to address urban issues in the Baixada Fluminense and heal the URBAN FRACTURES caused by the railway lines. This project explores three possibilities, outlining the potential and dilemmas of each scenario: OCCUPY, ELEVATE, and SUBMERGE. The design is inspired by the orange groves that once covered much of the municipality. With the onset of World War II and the sharp decline in orange exports, many farms were subdivided, leading to disorganized urban growth. Thus, the landscaping radiates from the obelisk to represent these subdivisions as seen from above.

See the complete project here.

An Essay on the City: Living in Parallel Times

Author: Giovanna do Val Custódio
Advisors: Daniel Corsi and Angelo Cecco
Institution: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (São Paulo/SP)

Thinking of void as a structuring agent is essential in cities like São Paulo, which rapidly transformed into megalopolises. Voids can host flow dynamics generated by solid buildings, which are often constructed without considering these spaces.

Identifying public squares (*largos*) as convergence points where voids exist, and recognizing them as generators of possibilities, the actions proposed here are built across three times and three squares. The project seeks to turn these spaces into meaningful anchors by redefining the limits of public space.

In Phase 1, structural add-ons are attached to two blind walls, configuring public access modules and balconies for residents, while a dry plaza at the ground level acts as an extension of São Bento Street. In Phase 2, an elevated plaza on a rooftop creates a new public level, extending the Largo do Café. Above it, mechanical platforms configure different heights to create ephemeral environments. In Phase 3, moving translucent volumes shape various spaces, interacting with the mural painted by Maurício Nogueira Lima, thereby recontextualizing both the artwork and the public realm.

See the complete project here.

Favela in Name, City in Fact

Author: Kelly Alencar
Advisor: Ligia Pinheiro de Jesus
Institution: Centro Universitário das Faculdades Metropolitanas Unidas - FMU FIAM-FAAM (São Paulo/SP)

We are conditioned to perceive the favela as an unhealthy, criminalized space lacking infrastructure, responsible for spreading urban problems. However, it is not the favela's material precariousness that suffocates the city, but the other way around. 'The socioeconomic pressure exerted by urban centers crushes the transformative potential of territories on the city's periphery' (BASSANI, 2016). The favela is a city in fact.

The project studies the Iguaçu and Jardim Planalto favelas, located between the Sapopemba district in São Paulo and Santo André, within the Ribeirão do Oratório watershed, to develop redevelopment strategies for these areas. The goal is to move beyond merely highlighting existing areas of struggle and belonging, and actually improve the residents' quality of life. It is crucial to claim the right to the city by upgrading interstitial voids left by self-building, regularizing land tenure, providing technical assistance, and ensuring active community participation in the design and intervention process.

Through the proposed urban plan, these spaces, currently invisible to the community, will be transformed into visible, active public assets.

See the complete project here.

Atlas XV: Investigations into a Representation Method for Everyday Urban Corpographies

Author: Matheus Lima Rodrigues
Advisor: Gustavo Badolati Racca
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro/RJ)

This theoretical project aims to systematize a method for producing 'lived' graphic representations built on ethnographic foundations. It contributes to new readings of urban space and, through the alterity of its micro-scale, corpographies, and temporalities, challenges the macro-narratives created by the commodification of urban spectacles and the maintenance of hegemonias.

Drawing on contemporary counter-hegemonic works and theoretical contributions from other fields, we identified common elements in graphic production—body, represented object, instrument, graphic product, and interface—and investigated the potential and characteristics of each variable. This was conducted at Praça XV de Novembro in downtown Rio de Janeiro, selected for its rich iconography and historical significance as a public space. Drawing, photography, and video were used as strategic tools to sensitize designers to everyday life and the impacts of urban design.

We used an atlas format, referencing Aby Warburg's visual montages (*Bilderatlas Mnemosyne*), to create a website that organizes the representations. By combining diverse temporalities obtained through research and montage, it highlights narrative threads and encourages new interpretations and responses.

See the complete project here.

Materializing an Amputated Memory | Intervention Proposal for the Manique do Intendente Palace

Author: Inês Sofia Bernardo Lopes
Advisor: Luís Miguel Maldonado de Vasconcelos Correia
Institution:  Departamento de Arquitectura da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra | Darq - FCTUC (Coimbra/Portugal)

Built as the centerpiece of an ambitious Enlightenment urban plan, the Manique do Intendente Palace is a fragment of a dream cut short by the assassination of its developer, Diogo Inácio Pina Manique. The unfinished building was subjected to theft, adaptations, and expansions over time, significantly altering its appearance. Unplanned surrounding developments also drastically changed the building's relationship with the town compared to the original designs. Isolated from the locals from whom it has long been disconnected, the imposing and monumental 18th-century ruin nevertheless captivates visitors as a major historical and architectural landmark of its era.

Under the REVIVE program, reflecting on this dormant heritage is imperative to reclaim it for public use. This exercise proposes an instrument of urban, social, and economic regeneration, adapting the site to contemporary needs. *Materializing an Amputated Memory* takes shape through an intervention that counters the progressive decay of this heritage and its surroundings, seeking to complete and requalify the building with a new tourism program that is both regenerative and economically viable.


See the complete project here.

Floating Memory: Cultural, Environmental, and Scientific Complex at Ilha da Casa da Pólvora

Author: Mariana Samurio
Advisor: Nicolás Sica Palermo
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS (Porto Alegre/RS)

Just a few kilometers from downtown Porto Alegre lies one of the metropolitan area's largest natural preserves: the Jacuí Delta. This network of waterways and islands harbors native fauna and flora with biodiversity comparable to tropical forests. Amid the current environmental crisis, highlighting the importance of these environments is essential.

To protect the landscape and the historic structures on-site, which suffer from neglect and a lack of public investment, this project proposes a Cultural, Environmental, and Scientific Complex on one of the Delta's islands, Ilha da Casa da Pólvora. Three centers were created, integrated into the existing Guardhouse, Powder Magazine (*Paiol*), and Farmhouse (*Casa da Chácara*): memory (cultural program); knowledge (education and research); and landscape (trails and outdoor spaces).

The proposal seeks to restore the city's lost connection with the water by creating an eco-educational destination in the middle of the Guaíba River. Its proximity to Porto Alegre's Historic Center enhances its potential as a local anchor, while offering panoramic views of the city. Ultimately, the project creates a public space where people can understand their history, experience the natural world, and learn how to preserve it.

See the complete project here.

The Housemaid of Magé: Architecture in 8 Acts

Author: Pedro Vitor Costa
Advisors: Cauê Capillé and Maria Ayara Mendo
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro/RJ)

This project investigates the suburban periphery through the lives of eight domestic workers. These eight residents of Magé, a city in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, have daily lives shaped by long commutes. Through interviews and personal accounts, the project builds a cartography that links the history of the territory to the protagonists' memories, seeking to understand their daily routines. The narrative spans various scales and layers, revealing colonial structures preserved in urban morphology and designed spaces.

The research then turns to the act of designing, emphasizing the need to challenge hegemonic models to construct new understandings of body, space, and time in architecture.

The process is compiled into a book prototype that blends diverse languages and ways of grasping reality—a practical and theoretical essay that is more committed to provoking new questions than searching for definitive answers.

See the complete project here.

Redefining Paths: Architecture in Disasters

Author: Laura Grimberg De Sousa Chaveca
Advisor: Guido Paulo Kaestner Neto
Institution: Universidade Regional de Blumenau - FURB (Blumenau/SC)

Natural disasters are historically recurrent in Blumenau. Heavy rainfall in the city frequently causes devastating landslides. Families lose almost everything they own and are forced to move into temporary shelters. However, these facilities rarely provide the necessary conditions for emotional recovery, often subjecting occupants to crowded, unsupportive spaces when they need a welcoming environment.

This context inspired the project: a temporary shelter designed to offer comfort, security, and privacy for disaster-affected communities. The structures are designed to be easily assembled by women, who—along with children—make up the majority of shelter occupants.

The design also addresses inactivity by incorporating a porch that supports daily work or leisure activities. The module offers flexibility in material choices and layout configurations, featuring interlocking joints and a straightforward assembly manual.

The layout includes evacuation routes for internal guidance, while entry paths are designed to connect with the city. To ensure the modules remain useful after disasters, alternative applications such as street fairs and educational projects are suggested, transcending their temporary nature.

See the complete project here.

ARCHITECTURE OF AIR: Void as a Support for Becoming

Author: Victória Michelini
Advisors: Ana Slade and Cauê Costa Capillé
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro/RJ)

The project starts with the observation of a recurring architectural typology in Rio de Janeiro: the studio apartment building, investigating the lived experience of one of these spaces.

An analysis of two bodies sharing 17 square meters (183 sq ft) reveals how daily life is compressed to fit the environment. Walter Benjamin's 'case-house' metaphor is adapted here to the apartment-drawer binary.

Yet life cannot fit inside a drawer; it demands more. Bodies want to host, wash, work, and create. They need space for becoming—for what is not yet, but will be one day. They need to breathe. More than ever, THEY NEED AIR.

With a fresh perspective on this building typology, the project explores a new way of understanding domestic space in relation to the city. Through actions metaphorically akin to Gordon Matta-Clark's building cuts, it seeks a path of spatial de-growth and un-making.

Using the existing structure as a starting point, selective subtractions and additions blur and complexify the barriers between inside and outside (open-air corridors, semi-urban spaces, transversal benches) to support the unexpected (movable walls, dual-access units). These welcoming voids allow stagnant air to circulate and flow.

See the complete project here.

CCAATEA - Community Center for Adolescents and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Author: Vinicius Gabriel Gomes da Silva
Advisor: Felipe Corres Melachos
Institution: Universidade Anhembi Morumbi (São Paulo/SP)

The proposal designs a community and support center for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in São Paulo, addressing the cognitive, behavioral, and social needs of this population. It optimizes architecture to create an adapted, suitable environment that provides sensory and perceptual comfort.

The layout is structured through relatively autonomous, staggered blocks that double as quiet spaces of contemplation for individuals on the spectrum, creating unique views of the landscape through the play of solids and voids. Its pure concrete form consists of a square, providing users with a sense of self-regulation and spatial orientation amidst the shifting volumes. Circulation is defined by a series of ramps that connect the different levels, bringing an extension of the city into the building. Moving through the building encourages spatial sequencing across levels, supporting therapeutic activities tied to daily living.

See the complete project here.

Urban Oasis: A Green Laboratory for the City

Author: Sulâni Kurtz
Advisor: Marcos Antonio Leite Frandoloso
Institution: Universidade de Passo Fundo - UPF (Passo Fundo/RS)

Reflecting on our contemporary condition raises several questions: how can architects and urbanists shape a better future? What kind of future do we want to build? What legacy will we leave for future generations? This proposal investigates these questions, grounded in the understanding that sustainability—coupled with environmental conservation, waste reduction, and rethinking our cities—is the way forward.

Thinking globally and acting locally, the project repurposes a degraded, abandoned site that has sat vacant for 57 years. Both the area and its built heritage are regenerated, recycled, and reactivated through programs that merge sustainability with community life. Located in a central urban node, it is transformed into a living space rich in social and environmental biodiversity—an oasis in the middle of the city.

Thus, the Urban Oasis Park explores the potential of this space as an epicenter for sustainable practices that rally the community around ecological solutions. Its presence serves as a constant reminder of the transformative capacity of industrial spaces: where a silo once stored grain, it will now conserve the environment.

See the complete project here.

Social Reintegration and Restoring Citizenship: A Housing Complex for People Experiencing Homelessness

Author: Karina Deconto
Advisors: Carlos Bahima and Eliane Constantinou
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS (Porto Alegre/RS)

Despite growing public investment, the unhoused population continues to rise. This persists because temporary housing is often treated merely as emergency shelter, without providing a definitive solution.

This housing project for people experiencing homelessness goes far beyond permanent shelter: it integrates residents into the urban fabric and uses architecture as a tool for social reintegration. Drawing on the Housing First model, the plan features an on-site support center within the housing complex, providing all the services needed for recovery and social reintegration.

Permanent housing is centered on an affordable, easy-to-assemble module built by the beneficiaries themselves through vocational workshops. The units feature modular walls that adapt to different contexts, allowing them to be deployed on vacant lots or within existing structures. This approach also helps address another critical issue in Brazilian cities: the rise of abandoned, underutilized buildings that no longer serve their social function.

See the complete project here.

Coração de Negro - Quilombola School Complex

Author: Vanessa dos Anjos Costa
Advisor: Colette Dulce Dantas Gomes
Institution: Universidade Tiradentes - UNIT (Aracaju/SE)

The Coração de Negro School Complex, designed for the *quilombola* community of Sítio Alto in Simão Dias, Sergipe, serves children aged 0 to 14 in a full-time system. It supports social equity and helps preserve sociocultural traditions for present and future generations. The project's diagnostics were grounded in local research and interactions with the community. Preserving knowledge, memories, and spirituality guided the design.

The concept is based on the ancestral and territorial landmark of the *Coração de Negro* tree, located at the edge of the community. Elements of its organic morphology—circular canopy, roots, connections, and knots—were integrated to celebrate local identity and memory. The architectural design fosters a relationship between local traditions, beliefs, and vernacular building methods, utilizing earth, wood, and local vegetation. Bioclimatic strategies maximize natural ventilation and daylighting throughout the spaces.

See the complete project here.

Parallel 22

Author: Caio Guaraná Tavares Cavalcanti
Advisors: Diego Portas and Marina Correia
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro/RJ)

Imaginary lines slice across the globe, translating abstract concepts into reality while defining territories, nations, and borders. They both shelter and divide contemporary humans, serving as a metric that even measures time. Out in the world, we seek these lines.

This project emerges from one of them: the 22°58’08”S parallel. It marks the sand, positioning us in relation to the world.

A 550-meter line cuts through the sands of Copacabana and extends into the ocean in three distinct interventions:
First, a shadow element that tempers the beach's monumental scale, offering shelter.
Second, a pathway projecting into the sea—stability amidst flux.
Third, a floating platform that invites us to discover new ground and view the city from an unprecedented vantage point.

By excavating the sand, we expose the rocks and sediments of this artificial beach, letting seawater in. We reconnect the city with the water that once occupied this space, allowing the sea to expand inward.

This raw project is born as a ruin—part of a line, incomplete. It is not a polished, definitive experience. Instead, it relies on the live interactions of its users, prompting contemplation and reflection. It is a melancholic design that seeks an acute perception of the world.

See the complete project here.

Architectural Commas: Urban Breathing Spaces and Inflexions

Author: Dante Akira Uwai
Advisor: Eliel Américo Santana da Silva
Institution: Universidade de Brasília - UnB (Brasília/DF)

The starting point was to create a reality within reality—a Situationist experience in one of the epicenters of urban transformation in Brazil: the historic center of São Paulo.

The Situationist *dérive* guides the project's urban scale. Drawing a 'magic circle' around a point of interest—referencing Johan Huizinga's *Homo Ludens*—it invites users to explore the city and reevaluate forgotten daily spaces.

Within this radius, eleven temporary interventions are proposed. Through materiality and color, they form a constellation that connects on an urban scale, transcending lot boundaries. Repurposing existing *terrains vagues*, the interventions treat the city itself as the project. Their programmed use is suggestive rather than rigid, encouraging experimentation and site reinterpretation.

At times, architects must distance themselves from strict norms and programs, focusing on the end rather than the means. This approach adopts an active, utopian stance on society and the city's future, creating spaces that amplify user-generated narratives. Here, the city becomes the protagonist and an extension of the architectural work.

See the complete project here.

Sesc Mauá: A Lighthouse in Urban Chaos

Author: Natália Zaffari
Advisor: Marta Silveira Peixoto
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS (Porto Alegre/RS)

The project seeks to reclaim the power of a site currently housing a branch of the State Silo and Warehouse Company. The existing building is a major visual landmark in Porto Alegre and holds deep historical significance. What once distributed grain across the state will now distribute art and culture. The proposal evokes the concept of a lighthouse, visible from afar, drawing attention to an overlooked area.

Sesc acts as the catalyst for this transformation. What was once a public liability becomes a valuable asset, connecting people, culture, history, technology, and nature. This project joins two of Porto Alegre's underutilized assets: the Sesc institution and the Guaíba Lake.

The program bridges different eras. The existing silos are the focal point, emphasizing their expressive verticality. The original building preserves the past through exhibitions on local history and its own legacy of grain storage. Meanwhile, the new building represents the future, focusing on culture and education to foster urban development and complement the surrounding context.

See the complete project here.

Memorial and Research Center for Culture, Sexual, and Gender Diversity

Author: Renan Araújo de Carvalho
Advisor: Alexandre Suárez de Oliveira
Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho - UNESP (Bauru/SP)

Despite being an intrinsic aspect of human diversity, homosexuality has historically been shrouded in tabus and prejudices that marginalized it culturally and politically. Consequently, the history, struggles, achievements, and contributions of sexual minorities have often been subjected to social invisibility.

The ongoing devaluation of diverse sexual identities and their cultural heritage prompted this research, which highlights—on local, national, and international scales—the exclusionary processes that relegated sexual minorities to precarious public spaces and their arduous path toward claiming their right to expression, the city, and dignified spaces.

Located in a landmark park in Bauru, São Paulo, the *trans(a)parent* building completes an unfinished landscape and urban project, which originally planned for an indoor theater on this site. This architectural proposal for a social research center, museum, and memorial aims to safeguard LGBTQIA+ culture, fostering a political and educational space for support, refuge, community, and expression of diverse identities.

See the complete project here.

ExtraOrdinary Banal: An Essay on Invisible Spaces

Author: Mariana Martins Pessoa
Advisor: Braulio Romeiro
Institution: Universidade Federal de Goiás - UFG (Goiânia/GO)

This essay is the result of a theoretical, practical, and experimental investigation that uses open, subjective, and critical reflection to challenge and expand the boundaries of 'making architecture.' Conducted along Anhanguera Avenue in Goiânia, this research looks beyond the institutionalized, solid city to find undefined, noisy spaces. By contrast, these areas reveal the limitations and contradictions of conventional design while highlighting the potential of unexplored opportunities.

Using tools like psychogeography, the *dérive*, and photography, the project exposes an invisible city. This serves as a lens to reveal alternative perspectives on both what is designed and what is left behind.

To position architecture and urbanism beyond aggressive, radical interventions that disrupt the unique qualities of these spaces, the project treats design as an investigative tool for daily life. It seeks to raise awareness about new ways of experiencing and transforming space and life. By foregrounding invisible spaces, new processes and representation strategies emerge. The discussion is presented through a travel log and two experimental products: 'the new tourist kit' and the 'blind facades' project.

See the complete project here.

The Architecture of Infrastructure in the Peripheral Railway Space

Author: Ariane Pereira da Silva
Advisors: Cauê Costa Capillé and Thiago T. A. de Soveral
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro/RJ)

Thinking about the architecture of infrastructure means exploring infrastructural space—specifically its boundaries—as a field of design. This project investigates the urban and architectural relationships established with mobility infrastructures, focusing on the railway. Built during the first wave of scattered peripheral growth, the railway is a key historical source for understanding how this logic developed.

Focusing on the Japeri and Paracambi lines, the project begins with a typological and urban analysis of their stations. These architectural elements, inherently tied to the railway's infrastructure, reveal a dual condition as both metropolitan and local devices. The layout and repetition of these objects offer a catalog of how this shared infrastructure was absorbed by the periphery.

The 'essay station,' proposed for Nova Iguaçu on Rio de Janeiro's outskirts, draws on design strategies compiled from this research. It applies lessons from ramps, footbridges, and retaining walls as crucial elements in managing infrastructural space. Additionally, the project conceives of architecture itself as infrastructure—an architectural framework supporting diverse scenarios of public appropriation.

See the complete project here.

Cinema in Motion: Itinerant Film Festival in São Paulo

Author: Mariana Taffarel
Advisors: Igor Guatelli and Valter Caldana
Institution: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (São Paulo/SP)

Faced with the decline of movie theaters in cities and a preference for streaming, *Cinema in Motion* asserts that cinemas, as public spaces, remain vital anchors and catalysts for urban life.

The persistence of the movie theater, despite the convenience of streaming platforms, reflects a conscious choice to move through the city toward collectivity and public life. This movement of the spectator is evoked literally. The project 'unboxes' the theater, integrating it into open urban spaces as an ephemeral experience.

This dynamic, itinerant architecture is designed to shift the cinematic and urban experience into a performative, unexpected event. Beyond literal mobility, it encourages bodily movement, inviting pedestrians to walk between platforms and adapting to various uses through flexible structural components. Uniquely, it also uses the trucks that transport it as the structural foundation and driving force that opens the 'doors' of this cinema to the city.

See the complete project here.

Opposite Shores: Connecting Santos and Guarujá

Author: Giulianna Furini
Advisor: José Maria de Macedo Filho
Institution: Universidade Católica de Santos - FAUS (Santos/SP)

This project examines the shores of the Port of Santos canal, analyzing its diverse local atmospheres and conceptualizing the territory as a unified whole to understand the physical and social dynamics between the municipalities of Santos and Guarujá.

Driven by economic growth and organic expansion, the opposite shores grew increasingly segregated, and the estuary ceased to be a shared community resource.

The design focuses on reconnecting people with the port's waterfront, preserving the identity shared by traditional *caiçara* culture, native vegetation, and the industrial port. In this scheme, architecture becomes fluid, taking the sea as its field. Drawing on Dutch maritime strategies, the project proposes a floating park divided into modular units that can be towed along the shores, creating a shared territory to bring the two sides together.

Alongside the floating linear park, the project improves access for the Guarujá communities along the canal, addressing their leisure and cultural needs. It also strengthens strategic connection axes between the two cities, including pedestrian and vehicular crossing points.

See the complete project here.

Housing: Limits and Possibilities of Open Building in Brazil

Author: Lucas Dias Franco Afonso
Advisor: Denise Morado
Institution: Escola de Arquitetura da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - UFMG (Belo Horizonte/MG)

This project investigates how the Open Building approach can support housing production in Brazil. It analyzes the design, construction, and technological aspects of both Open Building principles and traditional housing production. These findings inform an alternative proposal for the case study: a gated multi-family development in Belo Horizonte.

Housing is treated as a dynamic process that relies on the occupant's participation in shaping their space. Therefore, this approach explores ways to reintroduce residents into the decision-making, construction, and occupancy phases. It seeks to restore the political dimension of housing, which has been eroded by mass production, standardization, and architectural uniformity.

The alternative proposal consists of two blocks with internal courtyards and terraces, connected by shared areas and a public plaza that preserves views of Serra da Piedade. It distinguishes between support (fixed, durable, structural elements) and infill (flexible, specific, shorter-lived components) to empower residents with spatial autonomy while ensuring the building can adapt over time.

See the complete project here.

Inhabiting the Rural: Social Interest Housing and Self-Construction in Pontal do Paranapanema

Author: Dambrenio Boró
Advisor: Cristina Maria Perissinotto Baron
Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista - UNESP (Presidente Prudente/SP)

This graduation project proposes a social housing development for the Arco-íris, Haroldina, and São Bento settlements in the municipality of Mirante do Paranapanema, São Paulo. The project examines the historical context of Pontal do Paranapanema, a region in western São Paulo marked by agrarian conflicts and a high concentration of land reform settlements. It also uses qualitative interviews to understand the needs of local residents.

Based on these insights, the project designs incremental housing that is coherent with the local landscape and responsive to the community's needs. It integrates local characteristics, such as traditional building culture, material availability, and spatial relationships, prioritizing the porch and kitchen over other spaces. The proposal incorporates self-building as a labor model, supported by a construction manual designed to share technical knowledge between the architect and the residents.

See the complete project here.

Amphibious Infrastructure: Structures for Rediscovering the Guamá River in Belém, PA

Author: Octavio Henrique Mendes Pena
Advisor: Marcela Silviano Brandão
Institution: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - UFMG (Belo Horizonte/MG)

Influenced by the work of photographer Luiz Braga, I found an urban potential in the historical records of the stilt-house (*palafita*) communities on Belém's periphery, which invites us to rethink the relationship between city and nature. Inspired by this, I explored how formal, academic architecture could approach its primary functions—living, commerce, leisure—in dialectic with the river, much like the vernacular stilt houses.

Belém also faces a severe urban challenge: flooding. The project's starting point is to create permeable spaces along the waterfront, restoring lost connections between the city and the river. This overarching concept is applied across three distinct sites and projects, bound by a shared structural module and urban strategy. This choice responds to the diverse, site-specific potentials of the territory. Ultimately, the proposal shows how a unified macro-strategy can yield context-specific solutions with metropolitan-scale transformative potential.

See the complete project here.

Aleppo 2060: A Railway Station in the Context of the New Silk Road

Author: Catarina Medroa
Advisors: José Afonso and Jorge Nunes
Institution: Faculdade de Arquitectura - Universidade de Lisboa (Lisboa/Portugal)

Focusing on Aleppo, this project applies architectural design to a peaceful vision for 2060, imagining an optimistic and prosperous post-war future.

Alongside the reconstruction of the city damaged by the Syrian Civil War, an ambitious opportunity emerges: integrating Syria into the New Silk Road, driven by high-speed rail.

The Aleppo Railway Station is the architectural response to this infrastructural project, reconnecting China to the gates of Europe.

Its identity reconciles local Islamic imagery with Eurasian rail development. The platform and its adjacent lounge and retail areas unfold along modular arcades, culminating in a shared roof defined by geometric patterns, color, and controlled natural light.

Combining technology with adapted local building techniques, the station operates off-grid. Retractable solar panels facilitate continuous natural ventilation which, combined with adobe brick integration in the roof, keeps the space cool during hot summer months.

See the complete project here.

SEG.MEN.TO - Expandable Rural System

Author: Nathana Serena
Advisor: Vera Dutra Mascarello
Institution: Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos - UNISINOS (Sobradinho/RS)

If cities represent only 2% of the world, what happens in the other 98%?

SEG.MEN.TO focuses on family-run farms and rural areas that supply cities and sustain the world, yet are undervalued and face living conditions far below those of urban residents. The project values this sector by promoting direct-to-consumer sales, boosting productivity with dedicated food processing spaces, and fostering growth through training spaces.

Using a modular system designed for local adaptation, this model can be replicated across Brazil. It accommodates diverse socio-environmental conditions, allowing programs to be tailored to each context. Climatic variations are addressed through interchangeable cladding options, while the elevated structure adapts to different topographies, incorporating auxiliary ramp and stair modules as needed.

The base module of SEG.MEN.TO blends elements of vernacular rural housing with contemporary environmental sustainability, featuring a pitched roof, a porch that bridges indoor and outdoor spaces, and renewable cross-laminated timber (CLT).

See the complete project here.

Active Mobility Strategic Plan for Curitiba's Central Perimeter

Author: Bruno Marcos Kleis Jankowski
Advisor: Maria Carolina Maziviero
Institution: Universidade Federal do Paraná - UFPR (Curitiba/PR)

Since the 20th century, urban centers have been structured around mobility systems that prioritize private motorized transport. This has impacted daily life and public health, contributing to sprawling, polluted, and sterile cities.

Despite its reputation for public transit, Curitiba follows this trend, which is compounded by weak implementation of urban mobility policies. Addressing this, the project proposes an alternative to motorized and private transport in Curitiba through an Active Mobility Strategic Plan.

The study area focuses on the influence zone of the Centro neighborhood, termed here Curitiba's Central Perimeter. This area was chosen because it features key attributes for active mobility, such as mixed-use zoning, transit access, and high residential and commuter density.

Based on surveys and analyses, the plan details actions to elevate active and intermodal transport as a matter of public interest, aiming to give commuters genuine independence in choosing how they travel.

See the complete project here.

Seniors' Day Center: A Public Space Study for the Elderly in the Jabaquara District

Author: Beatriz Sayuri Nobumoto
Advisor: Helena Aparecida Ayoub Silva
Institution: Universidade de São Paulo - FAUUSP (São Paulo/SP)

This graduation project studies the elderly population and their relationship with public space. Through an investigation of existing public policies and site visits to public and private facilities in São Paulo, the research focuses on the Seniors' Day Center—a non-residential facility that supports elderly individuals with physical and/or cognitive dependence during the day. Offering workshops, occupational therapy, and multidisciplinary care, the Day Center is a crucial resource for family support and society.

Given the aging demographic of the Brazilian population, addressing this growing reality is increasingly vital. This project designs a Seniors' Day Center in the Jabaquara district, based on public network programs but expanded to foster greater dialogue with the surrounding urban environment. Ultimately, the research goes beyond debating a local public space design to address a structural social issue within an urban context shared by many other cities.

See the complete project here.

Essays of the Body in the Dwelling Place

Author: Natália Dário Mendes Barros
Advisor: Cristiano Cezarino Rodrigues
Institution: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - UFMG (Belo Horizonte/MG)

**Essays of the Body in the Dwelling Place** is a research-design project investigating confinement and the pandemic's impact on the relationship between body and architecture. Will the global experience of lockdown alter how we conceive and build spaces? Drawing on a phenomenological approach, dance, scenography, visual arts, and technology, the project proposes alternative ways to think and practice architecture.

The project was multi-platform. A digital publication compiled the theoretical research, references, and technical specifications. An Instagram project served as an open call, prompting residents to share poetic experiences of home and encouraging them to rediscover and reinvent their relationship with domestic space. Artists from Brazil and abroad participated, sharing feelings and perceptions of body and space during quarantine.

The performance was an experiment in the (mis)alignment of body and architecture, blending drift (*dérive*), detour, and discomfort. The goal was to subvert domestic functions, breaking with normative codes and prompting alternative spatial appropriations. Four cameras were simultaneously connected to a videoconferencing app and broadcast live on YouTube, with frames crossing in space to track the body's movement.

See the complete project here.

Here and There: A Design Essay on Inclusion in Itajobi

Author: Breno Quaioti
Advisors: Lucas Fehr and Angelo Cecco
Institution: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (São Paulo/SP)

This project focuses on Itajobi, a small town in rural São Paulo, as an example of the current condition of many rural cities in Brazil. Facing a housing deficit from the late 20th century until the early 2010s, public housing policies created subdivisions isolated from the city center without basic infrastructure, ultimately segregating this small population.

Addressing this condition and a growing nostalgia for a past marked by street carnivals downtown, the project introduces a civic facility situated precisely at the intersection of the historic center and these new neighborhoods. The cultural park design features a series of pavilions along the Monjolinho River—the city's greatest natural asset—connected by a wide, elevated footbridge that acts as a stage overlooking both sides of the city. It keeps its central plaza open to encourage community gatherings and foster a shared vision for a prosperous future. Bringing fresh architectural perspectives to low-density cities allows them to engage with urban plurality and political integration within a broader regional context.

See the complete project here.

Ser(tão) Kalunga: Interventions in the Engenho II Quilombola Territory

Author: Cássia Dias Roriz
Advisor: Pedro Henrique Máximo Pereira
Institution: Centro Universitário de Anápolis - UniEvangélica (Niquelândia/GO)

This graduation project explores and proposes an intervention in the Engenho II *quilombola* community in the state of Goiás. Recognizing the critical importance of discussing traditional peoples' rights today, this work portrays the history of a community that lived hidden for nearly three centuries, having escaped slavery, among the valleys and hills of the *cerrado*. These centers of resistance still face threats and a denial of rights. It is essential to discuss these issues so that political structures act to support these communities and the ancestral forces inhabiting these lands.

The project responds to this reality, taking the specificities of the Kalunga community as a starting point and treating architecture as a cultural element of the site. Space is materialized through the reinterpretation of the vernacular and local tradition, using materials that reflect the symbiotic relationship between people and the land. In this sense, the project's primary commitment is to highlight local potentials while improving opportunities and access to basic rights. The new buildings address three goals: preserving cultural identity, reclaiming territory, and fostering a sense of community. Ultimately, the project stands as a powerful symbol of cultural resistance, reconnecting people with their heritage.

See the complete project here.

Águas Lindas de Goiás, GO: A New Spatial Plan

Author: Júlia dos Anjos Marques
Advisor: Patrícia Silva Gomes
Institution: Universidade de Brasília - UnB (Brasília/DF)

The pioneering relocation of the Federal Capital opened up opportunities for development in Brazil's interior. However, the migratory wave that built it also shaped the surrounding territory through exclusionary processes, forming the Brasília Metropolitan Region. Spatial and temporal analysis led to the selection of the municipality of Águas Lindas de Goiás as a case study to explore new directions in spatial planning for small- and medium-sized Brazilian cities. Issues such as lacking basic infrastructure, the ecological weight of hosting regional water resources, daily commuting, and precarious urban housing were addressed through participatory methods to capture a realistic portrait of residents' daily lives. Municipal analyses were produced using georeferenced data, aerial photography, participatory workshops, literature reviews, and archival research. The project culminates in three major proposals: macro-zoning and zoning for the region, an integrated mobility plan with the Federal District, and the deployment of civic facilities as community 'lighthouses' for spatial transformation.

See the complete project here.

Intervention on Ilha Diana: Strengthening Caiçara Culture

Author: Rafael Silva Pauliquevis
Advisor: Apoena Amaral e Almeida
Institution: Universidade Católica de Santos - FAUS (Santos/SP)

This project begins with an investigation into the *caiçara* culture on Ilha Diana, analyzing local customs and traditions to understand the community's needs.

The proposed intervention establishes water as a primary catalyst and organizer. The design concept features a perimeter ring that circles the community without disrupting traditional *caiçara* roots, while creating a new pathway connecting to the proposed facilities.

The architectural proposal responds to the island's current conditions, outlining strategies for community self-development. These include a school shipyard to build boats and boost local fishing, a traditional *caiçara* restaurant to foster tourism, and a vertical water reservoir network that also acts as an observatory tower. Additionally, the plan upgrades sports facilities with two pools, a new soccer field, and changing rooms, alongside a shelter to organize local birds.

See the complete project here.

Level -1: A Place to Live, Move, and Occupy

Author: Gabriel Furuya Alberti
Advisor: Cleusa de Castro
Institution: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná - PUCPR (Curitiba/PR)

During the 1970s, Curitiba struggled to balance historical preservation with urban growth. Driven by road expansion policies, an avenue was cut through the Historic District, fracturing the urban fabric and demolishing several historic buildings. This intervention severed the primary connection between two of the city's most vibrant nodes of the era: Praça Tiradentes and Largo da Ordem.

To address this, this project proposes guidelines for an urban intervention that reconnects the fragmented fabric by utilizing underground space. By moving heavy traffic below ground, the design improves the urban mobility system with an underground bus terminal and enlivens public space through daily programs. Finally, it supplements the existing downtown services with a large public underground parking garage.

On the surface, historical pathways are restored while maintaining the urban landscape. The scale of the intervention expands by creating a pedestrian-friendly perimeter of blocks with minimal vehicular traffic, reclaiming the city center for human use.

See the complete project here.

Network Body: Essay on the Dwelling of an Informational Body**

Author: Jordi Marchon
Advisor: Adriano Carneiro / Co-advisor: Suzane Queiroz
Institution: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro - PUC-Rio (Rio de Janeiro/RJ)

The essay *Network Body* (*Corpo Rede*) combines artistic practice with theoretical inquiry to build a narrative that visualizes the immaterial. Operating on the premise that designing is making something visible, the essay conducts proactive investigations in six acts, seeking to pull us away from the alienating immersion of daily life to feel out a new body, a new dwelling, and a new spatial condition defined by the devices and information that shape the contemporary individual.

The methodology is divided into two phases: first, a literature review of key contemporary authors addressing this thesis; second, field experiments where I placed my body in laboratory confinement as a way to explore public space during the pandemic.

The project tackles issues surrounding Big Data and the subtle dynamics of power, control, and surveillance, proposing the occupation of a hybrid space through an informational body that orthodox architectural concepts fail to accommodate. By exploring a new subjectivity, the project suggests decentralized actions against data control by private and governmental institutions, advocating for reclaimed autonomy and the reconfiguration of both our bodies and the urban fabric.

See the complete project here.

Everyday Abstraction: Episodes of a Networked Narrative**

Author: Melanie Martins Barroso
Advisor: Carlos Eduardo Feferman
Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro/RJ)

This project follows a fictional narrative, investigating the behaviors of a body intoxicated by rapid technological progress and its link to the loss of urban drift (*dérive*). Analyzing contemporary artistic and architectural works, the project shapes the archetype of this body through a performance in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Named *Device-Body* (*Corpo-Dispositivo*), this cyborg subject experiences walking through the city while carrying allegorical objects that strip away spatial and sensory perception. Territorial analysis of this performance incorporates biovigilance measures and the urban adaptations brought by COVID-19, leading to a fictional conclusion that maps the acceleration of digital numbness across three Immersion Zones.

These zones build an interactive virtual environment that replicates geographic scale: *Sensory Immersion* describes the algorithmic walk of a body along Rio Branco Avenue; *Systemic Immersion* designs a performative object in the forgotten Mahatma Gandhi Square; and *Fictional Immersion* uses light and shadow to dramatize the monumental axis between Chile and Paraguai Avenues. These zones engage with the irrational and illogical, questioning urban territory under virtual governance.

See the complete project here.

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*The selection is randomized;
**Both projects use the performance 'Device-Body' ('Corpo-Dispositivo') as an object of investigation. The performance was conceived and performed by students Melanie Martins (UFRJ), Jordi Marchon (PUC-Rio), Rafael Amorim (UFRJ), and Pedro Vitor Costa (UFRJ).

While you are here, check out the lists from previous years: 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.