Bike lanes created overnight, streets converted into slow zones, hastily extended sidewalks—all to accommodate the need for urban mobility in a pandemic scenario. COVID-19 has driven major urban interventions, often without the possibility of extensive planning or investment. Cities are turning into living laboratories for experiments that can bring benefits during the crisis and leave behind a more sustainable world once the worst has passed.
"Smart buildings" is a term that has gained prominence in recent years, both as a way to design more efficient buildings that offer greater benefits to their users and as a vehicle for the real estate industry to find a new market niche.
In many cases, the term "smart" is overused, often serving merely as a marketing pitch for so-called innovative technologies. In this light, because any technology can become obsolete over time, many building projects considered modern, advanced, or smart at the time of their construction are no longer deemed so today.
With the goal of blurring the boundaries traditionally imposed by walls, so-called integrated kitchens can be incorporated into adjacent spaces—most commonly living and dining rooms—using counters, tables, split levels, or even contrasting flooring and finishes.
On one hand, the exorbitant speed represented by rapid, minute-by-minute propagation, the crossing of borders, the spread across all continents, and unrestrained multiplication. On the other, the untouched, the immobile, the domestic cloister, isolation, and confinement in an attempt to avoid any sudden movement, suppress impulse, and control the environment. On one side, the virus; on the other, humanity.
In this pandemic scenario, where a deadly virus is nurtured by the uninterrupted speed of our movements—making us, ourselves, its driving force—immobility is seen as a key part of the antidote. This is an immobility that costs us dearly, confining us to our homes and forcing us to rethink how we experience the world.
Today is World Bicycle Day, celebrated for the diverse social, economic, and environmental benefits that this mode of transport and recreation offers. By establishing this day, the UN recognizes the contribution of cycling to the Sustainable Development Goals, including the creation of more sustainable cities and communities. This perspective gains even greater relevance during and after the pandemic. When exploring healthy ways to move around the city, active mobility stands out as a highly feasible, short-term alternative—one that goes beyond bike lanes to encompass the well-being of the citizen as a whole.
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Today, building humanized cities is predicated on full public participation, as outlined by national public policies institutionalized in Brazil's City Statute. However, it is clear that these mechanisms are largely geared toward adults, leaving children and youth on the margins of the participation and decision-making process.
The landscape of Brazilian cities shifts between two striking realities. On one hand lies the formal city, where the rule of law prevails, the right to the city is exercised, and high-quality infrastructure and public and private investments are concentrated. This is also the reality used as the baseline for formulating laws and urban planning guidelines, and where the presence of the state is most visible.
On the other hand, there is the informal city—occupying the peripheries and favelas, with an identity marked by exposed clay bricks and excessive density. Here, self-built housing dominates, regardless of land ownership, alongside informal occupation and a chronic absence of public policies and basic infrastructure. Leisure spaces, cultural venues, and green areas are deeply lacking.
Since 1992, following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, World Oceans Day has been celebrated on June 8 as a tribute to the sea and everything it offers, from raw resources to its powerful presence as a landscape landmark. In architecture, projects that engage with this infinite expanse of water have the opportunity to dialogue directly with one of nature's most powerful and expressive elements.
Currently, the most common materials used in high-rise construction—steel and concrete—are non-renewable and energy-intensive to produce. In this context, wood represents a more sustainable alternative for tall building structures, offering well-known benefits such as renewability, carbon sequestration, low embodied energy during extraction, and rapid construction times. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, mass timber can perform exceptionally well in terms of fire resistance, as discussed in a previous article.
The New York firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) gained worldwide attention in 2002 with the Blur Building, designed for that year's Swiss Expo. The volume was formed by 35,000 high-pressure nozzles that sprayed water from the lake below, creating a massive artificial cloud. Its shape, boundaries, colors, and translucency shifted with the sun and wind, offering visitors an immersive experience as they entered a fully permeable volume. Ten years later, Carla Juaçaba and Bia Lessa designed Humanidade2012 for the Rio+20 United Nations Conference, where several programmatic volumes were arranged within a massive scaffolding structure. With more voids than solids, its edges dematerialized into the sky, and at night the volumes appeared to float. According to the architects, “the very movement of people through the building turned visitors into exhibits when seen from afar.” Despite differences in scale and context, both temporary projects succeed in working with notions of translucency, lightness, the dissolution of boundaries, and movement.
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Vertical gardens, green walls, or living walls are different terms used for the same solution: the vertical arrangement of various plant species to enjoy the benefits of vegetation within a smaller footprint. In other words, the vertical application of plants maximizes horizontal usable area, a distinct advantage especially in places with limited ground space for planting.
Originally written as a final paper for the elective course Traditional Dwellings (Moradias Tradicionais) at Escola da Cidade in 2017, this essay addresses the little-known presence of large-scale pre-Columbian structures in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest.
Over the last 40 years, hundreds of massive geometric formations carved into the ground—known as geoglyphs—have been discovered in the state of Acre. These structures show that the Amazon was inhabited thousands of years ago and that its vegetation was managed, debunking the notion of the region as an untouched, pristine wilderness.
In interior design projects, we often encounter certain pieces of furniture that are easily recognized as milestones of a specific era, place, culture, or the career of the designer who created them.
What makes an object or piece of furniture iconic—whether within the design world or beyond—is not determined by a set of rigid rules. Asking what elevates a design to “icon” status leads to deeper questions: Is it its instant recognizability, its ability to break canons, or its timelessness? Furthermore, who are the arbiters who define this iconicity?
Designing residential projects constantly involves finding ways to enhance the daily lives of those who will occupy these spaces every day. The desire to radically subvert the housing program is bounded precisely by the realities of everyday life—domestic activities, practical dynamics, and the long-term presence of the residents. Consequently, innovation and creativity in these cases are usually manifested in details, spatial transitions, points of interest, furniture, and thoughtful approaches to interior design that are both pleasant and tailored to the inhabitants.
One way to create elements of surprise and break the monotony of standard residential layouts is the strategic, selective use of color in interior spaces. Pairing architectural elements such as beams, columns, floors, fireplaces, panels, and cabinetry with contrasting tones offers a fresh take on familiar components, innovatively transforming the perception of interior environments. Below, we have curated a selection of Brazilian projects that explore this approach in their interior designs.
Unlike various construction systems and materials, the landscape is not something that can be specified, or even drawn, in the architectural design of an apartment. However, landscapes are still shaped by the building's design decisions, both from an internal and external perspective—that is, in relation to their surroundings. Facade orientation and window size, for instance, are among the ways the views from an apartment are defined, while the scale and height of the building directly impact the context in which it is situated.
Just over four months after the first confirmed case of coronavirus in Brazil, and about three and a half months after the initial quarantine decrees, many cities still maintain restrictive measures to promote social isolation. Despite the recent easing of restrictions adopted by some states and municipalities, disruptions to the daily routines of architects and students persist, and the popularity of remote activities, such as online courses, has grown over the past few months.
While many architecture firms face reduced demand and stalled construction sites, students have seen their classes suspended or moved online. With more free time—whether due to shorter commutes or reduced workloads—students and architects have turned to online courses to sharpen or expand their skills in tools, software, and theoretical concepts.
The search for more sustainable products must begin at the design stage. In this light, it is essential for designers and everyone involved in this process to possess adequate knowledge; indeed, sustainable practices must be an integral part of the education of architects and urban planners.
Over the years, many architecture programs have increasingly integrated this discussion into their curricula in a more meaningful and in-depth manner, either through specific elective courses or within mandatory subjects.
One of the most engaging ways to learn about cities is through movies and series. Below, Anthony Ling from the platform Caos Planejado shares six recommendations for online series to learn about Brazilian communities, Soviet cities, and other corners of the world.
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