Articles

Over the past week, thousands of active fires in the Brazilian Amazon captured global attention in the press and on social media, where the hashtag #PrayForAmazonia was mentioned more than 150,000 times in a single day. But what can satellite data tell us about what is actually happening in Brazil's forests?

There is no doubt that preserving historical, artistic, and architectural heritage is a fundamental goal for building a just city. It is the right of all citizens, both present and future generations, to know and enjoy our collective memory and culture. However, for this to actually happen, both a discerning eye and a comprehensive vision of the city are essential.

Cities that absorb rainwater and allow it to follow its natural course. It should be simple, yet we chose to channel our waterways, preventing nature from doing its part: absorbing and purifying. For Chinese architect Kongjian Yu, this is the key to solving one of the greatest challenges facing contemporary major urban centers: flooding. 

In this doctoral thesis, architect Luciano Margotto, advised by Prof. Dr. Mônica Junqueira de Camargo, presents five lessons from architecture: Austerity, Generosity, Freedom, Public, and Spatiality. In his work, the author investigates the works of architects such as Carlos Millan, Marcello Fragelli, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Oscar Niemeyer, Vilanova Artigas, Fábio Penteado, Lucio Costa, Lina Bo Bardi, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Brasil Arquitetura, Gabriel Guarda, Martín Correa, and Alvaro Siza. Below is the abstract of the thesis defended at FAUUSP in 2016.

Five Brazilians die in traffic accidents every hour. While highly critical statistics like this can spark positive reactions, they are not always enough to change reality on their own. However, knowing that in the city of São Paulo intersections concentrate more accidents per kilometer, and that these rose by 5% from 2017 to 2018, provides decision-makers with the concrete data needed to implement measures to reduce these numbers. Acting on the most dangerous intersections will save lives.

In the popular imagination, *cortiços* (tenement houses) represented the worst of urban housing in Brazilian cities. Deeply rooted in the national culture and immortalized in Aluísio Azevedo’s classic novel, *cortiços* were depicted as unsanitary, dilapidated dwellings where disease proliferated, the margins of society lived, and landlords exploited tenants with extortionate rents.

A quality public transit system does not depend on buses alone: its overall quality is also directly linked to adjacent elements—such as bus stops. In all cities participating in the QualiÔnibus Benchmarking Group, bus stops were identified by the public as one of the most problematic components. But what can cities do to improve them?

The Bamboo Experimentation Laboratory at UNESP - Bauru is one of the leading centers for bamboo research in Brazil. The group of researchers associated with the lab has produced a vast portfolio of research and products ranging from orthopedic prosthetics, furniture, and shoes to building components. In this thesis, engineer Marco Antônio dos Reis Pereira, the laboratory coordinator, presents the Bamboo Project, which is the result of his academic and research work conducted since 1994. The thesis was presented in 2012 at UNESP - Bauru to obtain the *Livre-Docente* degree in the discipline of Bamboo Design and Construction. Read the author's abstract below.

“On Growth and Form”, written by biologist and mathematician D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson [1860-1948], is considered the greatest work of prose in twentieth-century science, highlighting the role of physics and mechanics in determining the form and structure of organisms. The book immediately became a classic for exploring natural geometries in the dynamics of growth and physical processes. Thompson reveals himself to be a great scientist, sensitive to the fascination and beauty of the natural world, writing in a style that led the specialized press to call his work “as much good literature as science; a discourse on science as if it were a matter of humanity.”

Felipe Camus, a photographer who has documented ELEMENTAL's project, shares his reflections on Ochoquebradas.

The Museo Casa de la Memoria is located in Medellín's Boston neighborhood and was developed to commemorate the bicentennial of Colombia's independence. Led by Juan David Botero as the design team coordinator, the project was conceived from the outset as a highly recognizable building for both the community and visitors, drawing its sculptural form from traditional gabled houses. "It is a museum for the victims of violence, and as such, we had to ensure it was a space for everything; a home, the house where memory comes to life," Botero says.

The 3,800-square-meter cultural facility unfolds along the creek like a tunnel, housing exhibition rooms, workshops, archives, offices, and an auditorium. Its envelope functions as a folded skin, incorporating an air cavity that absorbs cool air, draws it in through the facade, and expels it as hot air at the top. This chimney effect helps control the typical 30ºC summer temperatures of the area, ensuring a stable and comfortable indoor climate. Below, we take a closer look at its sculptural thermal and acoustic envelope.

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The casa chorizo is a residential typology historically used in Argentina, primarily in the city of Buenos Aires. It consists of a succession of similarly sized rooms connected along a longitudinal axis that open onto a gallery or courtyard, from which they receive light and ventilation. Typically built on plots between party walls, their service areas are grouped at the back. Today, numerous projects address the rehabilitation of this type of housing. These can be understood as research initiatives exploring how a city's characteristic construction matrix can be reviewed and updated to adapt to contemporary ways of living.

Photographer Manuel Sá shared with us his perspective on the Coati Restaurant, designed in 1987 by Lina Bo Bardi, João Filgueiras Lima - Lelé (precast reinforced mortar), Marcelo Ferraz, and Marcelo Suzuki.

The entire complex—comprising a restaurant, a bar, and three historic houses converted into nine apartments with ground-floor commercial space—is located in the Pelourinho district of Salvador, and is part of the pilot project for the Bahia Historic Center Recovery Plan proposed by Lina. The restaurant is unfortunately abandoned and falling into disrepair, as is the rest of the complex.

The new workplace paradigm, driven by digital transformation, is introducing significant changes to employee profiles and the roles people perform within their work environments. At Actiu, these shifts represent an opportunity to turn workspaces into strategic levers of change, allowing organizations to align their transformation goals with the well-being and satisfaction of their workforce.

The project emerged as an opportunity to increase accessibility to Buenos Aires's Hipódromo de San Isidro—currently privately managed—through minimal interventions. By creating a linear park around the perimeter, the proposal makes this urban green lung more inclusive, transforming it into a social hub that enhances both the environment and quality of life.

Anyone who has ever been to the beaches of Rio de Janeiro has certainly seen vendors selling grilled *queijo coalho* (curd cheese) or grilled shrimp, sweet mate tea, and Globo biscuits—classic snacks of the Rio shoreline. In São Paulo, open-air markets serve sugarcane juice and fried *pastel*, a local adaptation of a dish originally brought by Chinese immigrants and popularized by Japanese immigrants. In Minas Gerais, there is *pão de queijo* (cheese bread) and pastel, also filled with cheese. In Salvador, it is impossible not to mention *acarajé* (with or without hot sauce), which has been declared an intangible cultural heritage asset by IPHAN. The capital of Bahia even has its own Street Food Guide, reflecting the immense culinary diversity found in the city.

The visual stimulus that triggered this research[1] was the suggestive ambiguity of the letter m/h. Less glamorous than roadside motels, these motel-hotels are an affordable invitation to sexual fulfillment. To capture both their material and intangible complexity, the work is structured as a fiction. In doing so, the narrator imagined within these motel-hotels the potential to reveal other component parts of herself—as if these places, in their ambiguity and anonymity, could facilitate this encounter. In a simultaneous process of liberation and frustration, the multiple narrators find agency.

It is well known that our cities are increasingly saturated by automobile use; mobility has therefore become a key element in any discussion on urban living, particularly in large Brazilian cities. This premise prompts us to examine and better understand which aspects of urban commuting we can prioritize for intervention, moving toward approaches where car use is less necessary. An important step in this dialogue is understanding just how time-efficient cars actually are. Mapping Lab conducted a visual analysis of 27 Brazilian capital cities using data from the here.com platform.

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