Architecture News

The results of the public design competition for the Santa Iria da Azóia Health Unit Project in Loures were recently announced. Organized by the Loures Municipal Council with technical support from the Southern Regional Section of the Order of Architects (OASRS), the team from LXM Studio, led by architect João Lisboa, was awarded first place. The jury, consisting of architects João Félix and Carlos Santos from the Loures Municipal Council and architect Victor Neves (appointed by OASRS), noted that of the 35 proposals evaluated, the winning entry stood out for its seamless integration with the surroundings, contributing to an effective visual and landscape revitalization of the adjacent space. The jury also noted that “the solution designed for the exterior openings is innovative and highly functional.”

Santa Iria de Azóia is a Portuguese town in the municipality of Loures, with an area of 7.52 km² and 18,240 inhabitants (2011 data). The site is located in the Pirescoxe area of Santa Iria da Azóia, where the built cultural heritage closest to the intervention area features two prominent buildings: the Pirescoxe Castle, classified as a Property of Public Interest, and the Pirescoxe Convent. The general objectives of the competition were:

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Provincia Festival aims to create an open space for dialogue and the exhibition of civic interest topics, emphasizing responsible participation in provincial architectural development.

The website Mobilize, Brazil's first platform dedicated exclusively to sustainable urban mobility, has published a list of 30 must-see documentaries on the subject. Divided into feature and medium-length films, the selected titles address urban mobility from various perspectives, ranging from mass transit and non-motorized personal transport to urban culture and the June 2013 protests in Brazil.

The NGO Soluções Urbanas launched a crowdfunding platform earlier this month to enable technical assistance, the purchase of materials, and renovation work in precarious housing. Named Arquiteto de Família, the tool was developed with sponsorship from CAU/RJ.

The platform's goal is to facilitate access to better housing conditions, and the funds raised through the tool can be combined with resources from other sources, such as microcredit and barter fairs.

The third edition of Hello Wood Argentina is approaching—the renowned timber architecture and design festival that aims to teach thinking with your hands and learning through experience.

From March 2 to 10, 2019, 10 selected projects will be built around this edition's theme: a space of containment, a space of CON-TENSION.

Discover the projects selected for Hello Wood Argentina 2019, described in the words of their creators, below.

The deck is finished, the beams and columns have already been painted, and construction is moving forward at a good pace at the Guarda Housing Complex in Perafita, Matosinhos, Portugal, which will very soon see the completion of Uma Casa de Brincar e Não Só… / Not Only a Playhouse, built as part of the second edition of “O Lugar de Partilha.” At the end of the first week on-site, there is still much work to be done for this Self-Construction Laboratory organized by Casa da Arquitectura (CA) – Portuguese Center for Architecture and curated by Roberto Cremascoli, but spirits are high, and by August 10th, everything will be ready for the local community to enjoy.

The winners of the second edition of the Richard H. Driehaus Building Arts Awards, which recognize leading masters in Spain's traditional building crafts, have recently been announced. With a total of 84 nominations received, the traditional building crafts were grouped into four categories, with each category presenting an annual award of €10,000 and a commemorative plaque.

The first category covers arches and vaults, vaulted staircases, stone carving, and other masonry and stone-cutting work. The jury selected Cantería Jaurrieta, from Olite (Navarra), run by Valeriano Jaurrieta and Agustina Rodríguez Orduña, to receive this award.

The winners of the Vila dos Mellos Competition, promoted by Escola da Cidade, have been announced. Aiming to select five model single-family residential designs featuring rationalized construction for the Vila dos Mellos Condominium—a development that plans for the construction of 101 homes—the competition specified that each lot would receive one of the five winning designs, chosen at the discretion of the new owner.

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Plazoleta Amo Torres is a project by Echauri Morales in collaboration with Corporación Planen. Located in downtown Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, the intervention comprises a series of urban design gestures aimed at revitalizing the area along Hidalgo Avenue at its intersection with Santa Mónica Street, directly in front of the Corona Market.

As Europe's second most visited built heritage site, behind only the Colosseum in Rome, St. Mark's Basilica in Venice receives over 5 million visitors annually. Yet, under the strain of this massive influx, the 11th-century Byzantine mosaic floors seem to be succumbing to the effects of the floating city's tides.

The undulations in the basilica's floor are visible to the naked eye—feet have not touched them for a decade, as visitors are only allowed to walk on synthetic carpet runners—and they have even cracked at the most critical points, especially in the center of the building. Currently, only 20% of the geometric marble and stone patterns are original; the rest has been restored over the last ten centuries by the artisans of the St. Mark's Workshop.

With the aim of "reducing response times and streamlining the processing of certificates, permits, and final approvals," Chile will launch a digital platform called DOM en Línea, as reported by the newspaper La Tercera.

Currently, every municipality, regardless of size, has a Municipal Works Department (DOM). This department is responsible for ensuring compliance with local urban planning and construction regulations. Consequently, the DOM is tasked with authorizing new construction projects through an in-person, paper-based process; therefore, the DOM en Línea platform will allow these procedures to be completed online.

UPDATE:  This article has generated a much larger response than expected, and we feel it is our duty to clarify the situation. At no point does the article suggest that the project in Artur Nogueira is a plagiarism of the French project. Plagiarism, by definition, is presenting someone else's intellectual work as one's own, and this article makes no such claim. What it does state is that the project in Brazil is a copy of the French one, without accusing anyone of plagiarism or clarifying whether or not permission was granted to copy the design. We were contacted by the owner of Colégio Futura Plus, who informed us that during the design process, French architect Raphaelle Hondelatte was contacted and authorized the use of the elements mentioned in the text—specifically, the yellow giraffe and the cantilevered white volume. As soon as we receive new information, we will update the article again.

To what extent can architecture draw inspiration from references without being considered a copy of another building? This discussion raises diverse and controversial opinions that prompt us to reflect on the issue of architectural copyright and recall the infamous architectural replicas produced in recent years in China, which mimic everything from iconic buildings to the French capital itself.

Media and social networks are abuzz. This time, the controversy centers on a proposal by architect Rafael Viñoly to build a three-building complex—including a skyscraper rising well over 250 meters tall—on the site of the former San Rafael Hotel in Punta del Este, Uruguay.

A place of reference for the memory and identity of the Guarani people, the Tava, located in the area of the São Miguel Arcanjo Historical Site in São Miguel das Missões (RS), was built and inhabited by their ancestors at the request of their deity, Nhanderu.  This sacred site has been recognized as MERCOSUR Cultural Heritage. The decision was made and announced at the XVII Meeting of the MERCOSUR Cultural Heritage Commission, held on October 30 and 31 in Montevideo, Uruguay.  

Architecture is perhaps the built heritage that best expresses a city's history, highlighting major cultural figures whose work enriches the history of its people. The Porto Architecture Guide 1942-2017 follows the Lisbon Architecture Guide 1948-2013; together, they are the first two volumes in the Cities collection published by A+A Books.

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The Mictlán Pavilion Competition was established as part of the activities for the 2018 Mictlán Festival, an annual event held in the municipality of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. This event aims to celebrate the Day of the Dead traditions in this municipality, particularly along the Cajititlán waterfront.

For the competition, participants designed an intervention for the San Juan Evangelista pier in Tlajomulco, which served as a transitional space within the Day of the Dead Festival installations.

The call for entries for the international film competition on architecture, the city, and urban life—"The city is..."—organized by the Santiago Architecture Film Festival (ArqFilmFest), closed successfully with the submission of 1,518 audiovisual productions from around the world. 

According to the organizers, they received more than 100 films from the United States (183), Iran (166), and India (160), and over 50 from Turkey (79), the United Kingdom (74), Italy (60), Brazil (58), and France (50), among many other countries across all continents.

Portuguese architect João Luís Carrilho da Graça has been unanimously selected as the winner of the inaugural Leon Battista Alberti Architecture Prize, awarded by the Leon Battista Alberti Center for Studies Foundation, named after the prominent Renaissance architect and art theorist.

Carrilho da Graça, who heads the eponymous firm Carrilho da Graça Arquitectos, is known for major projects in Portugal and other European countries, such as the Lisbon Cruise Terminal, the Theater in Poitiers, and the Orient Museum.