This guide covers a workflow that moves from project parameters to generated floor plans, 3D perspective views, exterior design exploration, and site context visualization, using AI tools in place of preliminary CAD and rendering work.

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 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.

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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The book Sustainable Tropical Cities, published by the Institute of Tropical Architecture (San José, Costa Rica) in 2006, gathers the conclusions its authors compiled over years of observation and study. Bruno Stagno and Jimena Ugarte, both architects and immigrants enamored with the tropics, aimed to demonstrate the specific characteristics that cities located in the tropical belt possess—or should possess—while introducing an unprecedented topic.

ArchDaily is working with CityMakers to publish a series of articles, conversations, and interviews with the key figures in urban co-production behind the Barcelona CityMakers Lab 2019, an event taking place from October 14 to 20, 2019.

On this occasion, we feature Jokin Santiago Elorriaga, director of Leku Studio, who will lead a masterclass at the Barcelona CityMakers Lab 2019. Jokin is the founding architect of Leku Studio and was responsible for the design and transformation of the Sant Antoni Superblock.

In the book “Order Without Design”, Alain Bertaud mentions that indicators are crucial in urban management to give cities a real-time view of what is happening within them. One interesting indicator related to housing affordability is the so-called “Price/Income Ratio.” This is essentially the average home price in a city divided by the average resident's income. It is a highly generic indicator that does not account for differences between properties, such as location, nor does it address rental housing (still a minority in Brazil). Nonetheless, it provides a general overview of housing affordability in a city.

The Armando de Arruda Pereira Housing Complex, known as the Japurá Building, submitted to the IAPI in 1945 by architect Eduardo Kneese de Mello, stands out as a pioneering experiment in affordable housing in the central area and represents one of the earliest applications of the Corbusian unité d’habitation concept in the country.

Walking is more than just a mechanical movement: it is a daily reclaiming of urban space. It is being active in the urban environment, noticing the city and the details that shape it. However, this choice does not always depend solely on individual willpower; it is also tied to external factors, such as people's physical and social conditions and the presence of infrastructure that enables this choice.

The debate over materiality and how it shapes the spaces housing our entire social dimension lies at the core of architectural discourse. Although architects define a concept, a *parti*, and adhere to a program that can even influence urban life, ultimately it is everyday life and each individual's cultural repertoire that dictate how a place is experienced. The understanding that there are multiple layers in society capable of building invisible walls—which dissolve architectural poetics and unfold into other issues crucial to understanding the system in which we are embedded—is one of the reflections proposed by Nova República, a project created by anthropologist Hélio Menezes and the architects of Cape Town-based Wolff Architects for the São Paulo International Architecture Biennial.

Berlin is a global leader in urban mobility, according to the Mobility Futures study by data and consulting firm Kantar, which evaluated major world cities. The German capital topped the mobility ranking due to several factors, most notably more cost-effective travel and easy access to a broad public transit infrastructure network and shared mobility services.

The Brazilian student team, comprising Luiza de Souza Santos, Marcus Barbosa, and Gabriel Thomé de Oliveira from UFMG, was awarded an honorable mention in the SkyCity Challenge 2019 international competition, which aimed to "explore sustainable ways of living, working collectively, and having fun." Learn more about their proposal below.

Venice is undoubtedly one of the most sought-after destinations in Europe for travelers from around the world. The city boasts attractions in many areas, from gastronomy to art, and naturally, architecture—an art form deeply woven into the city's fabric, most prominently showcased at the Architecture Biennales, held since 1980. Beyond the Biennale, the island has much to offer those interested in exploring places that epitomize the relationship between past and present, the preservation of historical memory, and new technologies serving buildings in constant relation with the water.

CityMakers is working alongside ArchDaily to publish a series of articles, conversations, and interviews with the diverse actors in city co-production behind the Barcelona CityMakers Lab 2019, an event taking place from October 14 to 20, 2019.

For this installment, we have compiled excerpts from a conversation with architect and urban planner Victor Torres, Creative Director of CityMakers, who invites us to reflect on the need to rethink traditional models of making and learning to build cities, and on CityMakers, a community that seeks to inspire change through on-site knowledge transfer in exemplary cities around the world.

The Spanish Architecture Prize (Premio de Arquitectura Española) has been awarded biennially by the Higher Council of the Colleges of Architects of Spain (CSCAE) since 1993 to promote the quality of architectural works built across Spain.

The award has recognized built works by architects such as Enric Miralles, Mansilla y Tuñón, Sara de Giles, and Francisco Mangado Beloqui, among others, with projects including the Royal Collections Museum and the Palma Convention Center and Hotel. Explore all the winning projects below.

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The Forêt Monumentale is a sustainable art and architecture exhibition featuring temporary works and pavilions designed as "site-specific" installations, created especially for a 4-kilometer trail in the Green Forest of Rouen, Normandy.

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A few months ago, the first exhibition by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) in Latin America concluded. It was held at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) within the Centro Cultural of Ciudad Universitaria in Mexico City. The exhibition featured some of architect Zaha Hadid's projects through models, audiovisual materials, paintings, and photographs. It explored the creative process of her practice, highlighting the importance and complexity of design as the central axis linking form and construction processes in her work.

In September, we launched the fourth edition of our open call in Colombia, inviting architects to submit their undergraduate thesis projects. In this edition, the call received 104 submissions from more than 15 cities and 25 universities across the country, marking an 11% increase in proposals compared to 2018.

Following an exhaustive evaluation, and to celebrate Architects' Week in Colombia, we present the 13 thesis projects selected as winners by our editorial jury (Fabián Dejtiar, Mónica Arellano, and Santiago Baraya). The evaluation criteria prioritized projects that directly addressed current issues, such as urban, local, social, and environmental contexts.

Located in the historic neighborhood of San Ignacio in the city of Bilbao, Spain, Levante Square is a prominent gathering point for residents and visitors alike. To address the lack of covered spaces protecting from the heavy rain, Spanish architecture office CANOBARDIN has designed a solution for users: a concentric structure titled "A Piece of Sky in Levante Square" that allows people to inhabit the public space and find shelter without losing touch with their surroundings, acting as a piece of the sky by day and a reflection of the square by night.

Designed to meet the construction sector's growing demand for finishes, Obra Blanca is a new event launched as a meeting point for professionals looking to showcase their products and those seeking to compare various finishing options. As a specialized exhibition, it focuses on the visitor experience and the professionalization of an increasingly comprehensive and sophisticated industry.

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Proyecto Panorama is a civil association made up of a diverse group of young people from Cancún, who have been actively working for more than two years on public space interventions in Quintana Roo through urban art. These interventions have proven to generate a positive impact on the residents' environment, strengthening the sense of identity and belonging in one of the country's most important developing regions. Since its founding in 2016, and thanks to collaborations with renowned national and international artists, Proyecto Panorama has intervened in more than 30 public spaces, as well as an elementary school in Cancún and another in the Riviera Maya, resulting in 116 murals.