Romullo Baratto is an architect with a PhD from FAUUSP and Managing Editor of ArchDaily. He previously coordinated the editorial team of the 11th São Paulo Architecture Biennial and served as Managing Editor of ArchDaily Brasil, where he led the platform to win the FNA Award—the first time the honor was granted to a media outlet. He collaborated on the editing of the book "Concrete Jungle", published by gestalten, and has curated architecture exhibitions in Brazil, Chile, Denmark, and Italy, as well as delivered lectures and moderated debates in Spain, the United States, and Portugal. His doctoral thesis investigates the urban landscapes of São Paulo through cinema. His work spans academic research and editorial practice, communicating architecture through texts, interviews, lectures, curatorship, and photography. Follow him on Instagram @romullobf.
Planting trees is one of the simplest and most effective ways to combat climate change, and many companies use tree planting to offset carbon emissions. However, when taking this approach, it is essential to ensure that the trees planted will effectively store sufficient amounts of carbon.
Planting location is a key factor. Trees must be planted where they can live for decades and properly absorb carbon from the air.
Portuguese architecture firm Sastudio, in partnership with Icelandic studio Huldajons and engineering firm Exa Nordic, has won the international design competition for a kindergarten in Garðabær, Iceland. Organized by the city municipality, the competition schedules the construction of the winning design for completion by 2022.
This is the second collaboration between the two offices, which were founded by Tiago Sá and Hulda Jóns, both of whom worked at Bjarke Ingels Group before establishing their own practices. Their first collaboration was also for a kindergarten competition, with their proposal being acquired by the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik. Discover the winning project below, along with the project description provided by the architects:
With the goal of getting to know the architects, projects, and stories behind landmark Portuguese architecture, Sara Nunes, from the architectural film production company Building Pictures, launched the podcast No País dos Arquitectos, where she talks with leading names in contemporary Portuguese architecture.
In this week's episode, Sara talks with architect Luís Rebelo de Andrade about the various buildings and renovations he designed in Pedras Salgadas, a municipality in northern Portugal. Revisit the other interviews from the podcast No País dos Arquitectos and read the transcript of the interview with Andrade below.
No País dos Arquitectos is a podcast created by Sara Nunes, who also runs the architectural film production company Building Pictures. The podcast aims to profile the professionals, projects, and stories behind leading contemporary Portuguese architecture. With just over 10 million inhabitants, Portugal is a fascinating country when it comes to this professional field, and its architectural output far exceeds its demographic or territorial scale.
In the first episode of the second season, Sara speaks with architect José Manuel Carvalho Araújo about the design of Casa do Gerês, located in Vieira do Minho. Listen to the interview and read the transcript of the conversation below:
Known worldwide for pushing the limits of formal experimentation with reinforced concrete, Oscar Niemeyer relied in many of his works on the indispensable collaboration of a civil engineer as inventive and daring as the architect himself: Recife-born Joaquim Moreira Cardozo, who graduated in civil engineering in 1930 from the School of Engineering of Pernambuco, today part of the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE).
Responsible for the design of the Alberto Torres Rural School in 1936 – a project that already showed synergy with modern architecture at the time – Cardozo met Niemeyer while working at the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Service (SPHAN) in Rio de Janeiro. During this time, he developed the structural design for the Pampulha Ensemble in Belo Horizonte, inaugurated in 1943. This was the initial collaboration of a partnership that would last 30 years and find its most prolific period in the construction of Brasília.
Following an incredible response to the first Virtual World Tour during the peak of the pandemic between late 2020 and early 2021, the organization Architects, not Architecture has decided to continue its global digital approach to connecting the architectural community. From October to December 2021, AnA will host events featuring prominent figures in global architecture.
This year, the tour will visit Hong Kong, Brazil, Japan, the United States, and Turkey. In each location, two architects will be invited to share their personal stories and the events that have shaped their careers. On October 27, the tour stops in São Paulo, featuring Marcio Kogan and Cristiane Muniz.
What can a cod offer to architecture? Or rather, what lessons about the environment and human settlements can we learn from the history of fishing? This unlikely question lies at the heart of the book Arquitetura do Bacalhau, by André Tavares and Diego Inglez de Souza, published by Dafne Editora and recently released in Brazil.
In the following interview, we speak with Tavares about the infrastructures linked to cod fishing and their relationship with territory, labor, and architectural production. Through an original approach—connecting architecture, ecology, fish physiology, and industrial history—, the authors propose a reading of the built environment anchored in the ecosystems that sustain it. Far from being a nostalgic look at the past, the research points to the urgency of rethinking architecture in the context of ongoing environmental transformations, showing how human constructions shape and are shaped by natural marine ecosystems.
We are pleased to announce the finalist projects for the ArchDaily Brasil 2025 Building of the Year Award. Following two weeks of nominations, the projects that received the most votes were selected from hundreds of works built in Portuguese-speaking countries. Our jury, comprised of thousands of readers, once again played a fundamental role in curating this selection, resulting in a shortlist of 15 remarkable projects.
From today until April 9 at 11:59 PM (GMT-3), you can vote once a day for the finalists—exemplary representations of contemporary Lusophone architecture. The winners will be announced on April 10.
The Tomie Ohtake Institute and AkzoNobel continue to map contemporary architectural production, highlighting, for the seventh consecutive year, significant projects built within the current Brazilian landscape. The relationship to the urban context, the commitment to the site and sustainability, as well as design and construction inventiveness, are the core criteria guiding the 7th Tomie Ohtake Institute AkzoNobel Architecture Prize.
Slate 1 CAU+Plural, composed entirely of women architects and urban planners, received 11,568 votes in the election for CAU/SP, held on October 15. The election, which recorded the highest turnout of architects and urban planners in the history of the Council of Architecture and Urbanism of São Paulo, marked the first time a single slate garnered nearly 40% of the valid votes.
In an unprecedented achievement, the slate secured the majority of seats in the Council, winning 49 plenary seats. Out of 77 total seats, 52 will be occupied exclusively by women. Thanks to this strategy, the next term will see a 77% female composition—with 54 titular members and 66 alternates, respectively. This effectively reverses the previous composition, where 76% of the state council was represented by men.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) recently published a practical guide for sustainable buildings, public spaces, and construction sites in Brazil. Authored by Esperanza González-Mahecha, Livia Minoja, Lucas Rosse Caldas, and Clémentine Tribouillard, the publication aims to simplify access for public and private managers to practical information on how to incorporate sustainability elements into projects, whether buildings (such as housing or public facilities) or public spaces.
Architect Gabriela de Matos, creator of the Arquitetas Negras project, was named Architect of the Year by the Rio de Janeiro Department of the Institute of Architects of Brazil (IAB-RJ). Alongside her, IAB-RJ also honored the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) during an online event held this week to announce the winners of the 58th Annual Awards and the 37th Architect of Tomorrow Award.
Dedicated to exploring the intersection of race, gender, architecture, and the city, Gabriela highlighted in her speech the importance of recognizing that "although the field of architecture and urbanism is still elitist and racist, it is precisely the training of architects and urban planners who view architecture as a social tool that can help bridge the gaps and inequalities in our society."
The City of São Paulo has just released 3D cartography for the entire city on the GeoSampa Portal. The new tool allows users to visualize buildings, trees, infrastructure, and other geometries in 3D directly on the map. The data is also available for download.
Brazilian architecture firm Estúdio Leonardo Zanatta has received an honorable mention in the international competition "Cool Abu Dhabi," which challenged participants to design creative solutions to tackle climate change and mitigate the urban heat island effect in Abu Dhabi. Titled Abu Dhabi Skins - (Bio)Reactive Urbanscape, the proposal is the only selection from the Americas.
In its 6th edition, Open House Porto (OHP) welcomes the city of Maia, which joins Matosinhos, Porto, and Vila Nova de Gaia for the major annual architecture festival organized by Casa da Arquitectura – Portuguese Centre for Architecture. To inform and guide visitors, applications to recruit 400 volunteers are open until April 20.
The Porto Alegre-based firm 0E1 Arquitetos has launched an e-book to help professionals design their new home workspaces. The Home Office Guide is a digital publication featuring tips to improve remote work environments, created to raise funds for local charities.
Earlier this month, the Observatory of Innovations for Sustainable Cities was launched. The project aims to gather information, proposals, and concrete examples of municipal initiatives and public policies that help improve people's quality of life and strengthen the environment. The initiative is a partnership between the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovations (MCTI), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Center for Strategic Studies and Management (CGEE).
Still largely overlooked by the international media, Angola's contemporary architectural production faces, much like many of its African neighbors, social and economic realities that do not favor its dissemination. When the typical challenges of architecture are compounded by others stemming from an intense process of neocolonialism, taking good ideas off the drawing board and actually building them becomes a formidable task. Stretching the relationship between the physical and the digital, the Angolan collective Banga turns to virtual space to bring to life projects that blend architecture, sensory experiences, and art.
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