Architecture News

In celebration of Brasília's 60th anniversary, filmmaker Pedro Rodolpho has made his documentary O Corpo e a Cidade Modernista available to the public for free. The film was screened at several of Europe's most prestigious film festivals in 2018, the year of its release.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a rapid increase in hospitalizations for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Brazil, and is expected to severely strain the capacity of the Unified Health System (SUS). Major cities already have confirmed cases among socially vulnerable populations. In this context, it is crucial for healthcare planning to identify where socially vulnerable groups with limited access to the SUS live, and which healthcare facilities are likely to face the most severe bottlenecks in meeting the demand for hospitalizing critically ill patients.

While the first edition's theme was SHARE, and the second was CIRCULATE, the 3rd Tomie Ohtake Institute Leroy Merlin Design Award proposes REVIEW as its core concept—an opportunity to look at our social and environmental context, critically analyze it, and ask: how can a project contribute based on what is already in place? 

In this week's Seminar on Culture and Contemporary Reality, hosted by the Escola da Cidade, Guilherme Wisnik talks with essayist, author, and host Francisco Bosco. Drawing from the essay "Communovirus" by philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, they discuss how the pandemic will impact the future of Brazil across its political, social, cultural, and economic dimensions.

Current Brazilian politics is an anti-politics aimed at the annihilation of institutions, such as the notions of the public and the state. Guilherme Wisnik talks with Fernando Haddad about prospects for imagining ways out of this abyss.

In 2017, the city of Salvador, Bahia, established its Urban Afforestation Master Plan and, as part of this initiative, released a comprehensive guide for anyone wishing to plant in urban spaces.

Which species are most suitable and how to plant trees on sidewalks are some of the questions answered in the document. Although titled the “Salvador Technical Urban Afforestation Manual”, the guide can be used by residents of any city, especially those living in the Atlantic Forest biome.

Guilherme Wisnik talks with Ester Carro, a community leader from Jardim Colombo in Paraisópolis, about forms of organization in vulnerable territories in times of epidemic, as well as the importance of community-led social initiatives.

What is the historical arc that traces the path from Brasília's social-democratic (and urban) utopia to today's neo-slaveholding dismantling of the democratic pact? What is this city we see today, stripped of all utopias, and with distinct regimes of vulnerability to the coronavirus pandemic?

Guilherme Wisnik talks with Raquel Rolnik, architect and urbanist, and full professor at the University of São Paulo's School of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU-USP). She was the director of planning for the São Paulo Municipal Planning Department (1989–92) and National Secretary of Urban Programs at the Ministry of Cities (2003–07), among other public sector roles. The Seminar on Culture and Contemporary Reality is organized by Escola da Cidade with support from IABsp.

Photography researchers and enthusiasts now have another major tool at their disposal. The Photography Book Database (BDLF) has just been launched: a bibliographic reference platform exclusively dedicated to photography books. Conceived by photographer and researcher Leonardo Wen, the project began development in 2018 with funding from the Federal District's Cultural Support Fund.

Atelier Marko Brajovic recently shared the design for a Floating Community Library on Lake Mamori, in the Amazon Rainforest. Developed in close collaboration with the local community, the project aims to become a benchmark for sustainable construction and environmental education.

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The São Paulo Municipal Government launched a bidding process this week for companies interested in constructing eight pedestrian access points to the João Goulart Elevated Highway, popularly known as the Minhocão, in downtown São Paulo.

In this week's debate hosted by Escola da Cidade, Guilherme Wisnik talks with Nuno Ramos, a painter, draftsman, sculptor, writer, filmmaker, set designer, and composer who holds a degree in philosophy from the University of São Paulo.

Developed by the Semeia Institute and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), Parques para Todas e Todos is a tool to inspire the creation of more diverse spaces by incorporating a gender perspective into the planning and management of urban parks. It offers guidelines, suggestions, and ideas to begin designing parks that address everyone's needs.

Guilherme Wisnik talks with Bruno Dunley, a visual artist, teacher, and co-creator and member of the project ali: arte livre itinerante, a nomadic art school that bridges centers and peripheries, operating in the district of Cidade Tiradentes on the far east side of São Paulo.

The National Archives Wiki-Contest is an editing competition on the Portuguese Wikipedia that aims to improve articles related to Brasília. It is part of a series of activities throughout 2020 conducted in collaboration by the Wiki Movimento Brasil User Group and the National Archives. The Wiki-Contest aims to encourage the Wikipedia editing community to improve entries related to the National Archives' Inter-wiki WikiProject initiative, which has been active since 2017.

Victoria is a Canadian city famous for its flower gardens. Its climate favors the cultivation of different types of flowers, earning the city the reputation of Canada's flower capital, or the "Garden City." However, the coronavirus pandemic has slightly changed this landscape. The city's gardening team has prioritized planting vegetable seedlings to be distributed free of charge, as public interest in growing one's own food has grown considerably during this period.

Nearly two years after the collapse of the Córrego do Feijão mine dam in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, the city's residents will receive a monument to honor the victims. The Brumadinho Memorial was designed by the firm GPA&A, founded by architect Gustavo Penna, and will serve to remind all Brazilians of one of the worst environmental tragedies in the country's history.

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Pé na Estrada is an outreach project of the School of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Brasília, active since 2011 as an extracurricular activity. Its primary goal is to organize and promote study trips across Brazilian cities. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project had to adapt to social distancing, launching new heritage education initiatives and encouraging alternative ways of experiencing spaces studied in the classroom to expand the knowledge and creative vocabulary of both students and the community.