Architecture News

Brazil has just received another World Heritage designation. Paraty and Ilha Grande (RJ) were recognized this Friday, July 5, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Committee during a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan. There are now 22 Brazilian properties on the list of sites of outstanding universal value.

The City of Jundiaí, in partnership with IABsp, organized an ideas competition for the Jundiaí River Valley with the goal of promoting a new design proposal for the site, considering both the regional context within the urban agglomeration and its relationship with the life of its immediate surroundings.

The Council for Architecture and Urbanism of Brazil (CAU/BR) has decided to deny professional registration requests from Architecture and Urbanism graduates of distance learning (EaD) programs. The resolution, dated March 29, was based on the fact that the field of Architecture and Urbanism is directly linked to the preservation of life and human well-being, the safety and integrity of property, and the preservation of the environment, with direct impacts on individual and public health. 

Two residential buildings collapsed this morning in Rio de Janeiro. Located in the Muzema community, in the city's West Zone, the four- and six-story structures collapsed at around 6:30 a.m. Two fatalities and three injuries have been confirmed, and another 17 people remain missing under the rubble.

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The Arquiteturas Film Festival (AFF) is returning to Lisbon soon and has already set its dates. From June 4 to 9, the 7th edition takes over Cinema São Jorge, centering the debate around the theme "Human Nature." Over the course of six days, the 2019 program will feature 62 films—90 percent of which are Portuguese premieres, alongside several world premieres. There will also be various parallel activities, including workshops, masterclasses, children's workshops, guided tours, collective meetings, and more.

Based on the 2012 book of the same name by anthropologist, poet, and essayist Antonio Risério, the documentary series A Cidade no Brasil offers an interdisciplinary and intercultural reflection on the aspects and dimensions of the urban phenomenon in the country, drawing on interviews with specialists and thinkers. Directed by filmmaker Isa Grinspum Ferraz, the 10-episode series is available to watch for free online on the SescTV website.

Opened earlier this month, the audiovisual installation A marvellous entanglement, conceived by British artist Isaac Julien, explores the life and work of Lina Bo Bardi through an immersive environment composed of nine projection screens. Featuring actresses Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro, who portray the architect at different stages of her life, Julien's work also includes a series of photographs of Lina's work.

The **A Casa de Jajja **project explores the relationship between affection and architecture as an emancipatory practice. It grew out of research developed as Mariana Montag’s graduation thesis at the School of Architecture and Urbanism of Mackenzie Presbyterian University. This connection of affection emerged through her involvement in the School Project in Kikajjo, a rural village in Uganda, East Africa. There, Mariana met Jajja Imaculate, a strong and faithful 75-year-old woman, grandmother to Rose and Gift. Together, they designed and discussed what a house would look like—a home whose architecture not only shelters Jajja but also serves as an emancipatory practice challenging gender roles, with the construction process conducted through capacity-building workshops for women.

The exhibition “Organic Rational” on the work of architect Pedro Ramalho, curated by Nuno Brandão Costa and drawing on his archive recently donated to Casa da Arquitectura, is on view at the Gallery of Casa da Arquitectura – Portuguese Centre for Architecture, in Matosinhos, until September 8.

This week, the São Paulo municipal government resumed the bidding process for the concession of six public parks to the private sector. Suspended since July of last year due to disagreements with the state government, the project was revived by current mayor Bruno Covas.

In addition to Ibirapuera, the city's largest park at 158 hectares, the bidding process also includes the concession of Lajeado (east zone), Eucaliptos (south zone), Jacintho Alberto (north zone), Tenente Brigadeiro Faria Lima (south zone), and Jardim Felicidade (north zone) parks.

Photographer Rafael Schimidt has shared with us a recent series of photographs of the Prudência Building, designed by Rino Levi in 1944. Located on Higienópolis Avenue, near central São Paulo, "this apartment building presented, for its time, a high standard of comfort due to its dimensions—four bedrooms and large living rooms—the materials used, and central hot water and air conditioning systems, representing an initiative without parallel in its time," comments Simone Barbosa Villa in an article on Rino Levi's buildings.

Álvaro Siza Vieira can add another award to his extensive list of global honors. The Portuguese master has just been awarded Spain's 2019 National Architecture Prize, announced during the II International Congress "Art, City, and Landscape," which concludes today in Cuenca with Portugal as the guest country.

No longer the future, the BIM system is already the present of architecture and construction in Brazil and around the world. The acronym stands for Building Information Modelling—or, in Portuguese, Modelagem da Informação da Construção—and consists of a digital representation of the physical and functional characteristics of a project, enabling the "integrated use of information related to each project."

The Polytechnic University of Valencia offers a free online course on sustainability in architecture. Available through the edX platform, registration is now open for Sustainability in Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, which begins on July 9. The four-week course requires three to four hours of study per week.

The federal government's Minha Casa Minha Vida housing program risks running out of funding starting this June, Regional Development Minister Gustavo Canuto declared this week. The current budget of R$ 4.17 billion is one of the lowest since the program was created in 2009, during the administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Boxing Boxes is a project resulting from two years of architectural research by Carlos Ortega Arámburo and Daniel de León Languré that combines boxing, as a tool for self-discipline and violence control, with a structure that activates civic space in marginalized areas. For this year's Lisbon Architecture Triennale, the Mexican architect, along with a local interdisciplinary team, installed the equipment in the Portugal Novo neighborhood, in Olaias, Lisbon.

The 2019 Building of the Year Award—ArchDaily's annual recognition where the winning projects are selected by public vote—has announced its list of winners, and as usual, the selection spans buildings from all over the world. Among the projects chosen by our readers, a Brazilian design won the award in the "Public Architecture" category: Sesc 24 de Maio, by Paulo Mendes da Rocha in partnership with the firm MMBB Arquitetos.

Last month, the city of Cuiabá inaugurated its first bus shelter built by repurposing shipping containers. The shelter was developed under a public-private partnership model, in which the companies Pantanal Shopping and Edificatto Arquitetura provided the bus stop to the city in exchange for advertising rights.