Closed for renovations since 2010, the Sesc branch on Avenida Paulista now has an official opening date: April 29. Designed by the firm Königsberger Vannucchi Arquitetos Associados, the renovation project transformed the former Sesc Paulista space, creating three auditoriums, workshop rooms, exhibition areas, rehearsal and fitness rooms, as well as the traditional services offered by all Sesc branches, such as a café, restaurant, and shops.

Focused on performing arts and body movement, the program of Sesc Paulista is spread over 17 floors, featuring a rooftop café and an observation deck overlooking the avenue. 

The Sebrae Sustainability Center (CSS), designed by architect and urban planner José Portocarrero, won the BREEAM Awards 2018 for best sustainable building in the Americas, as well as the popular vote category. Inspired by indigenous dwellings, which are benchmarks in bioclimatic design, the building in Cuiabá (MT) stands out for its thermal comfort and maximum use of natural light. Its double-shell roof enables internal cooling and rainwater harvesting, which is filtered and stored for garden irrigation and floor washing.

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Opened on April 29, Sesc Avenida Paulista featured an installation designed by architect and designer Guto Requena at its opening.

The project, titled Empatias Mapeadas, consists of an interactive parametric sculpture featuring pulsing lights and speakers that mix and broadcast the heartbeats of the participants who touch the piece.

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The concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) shaped 19th-century art movements and influenced several design schools of the era—including the Bauhaus, which brought the term into the modern age. The school's unstructured architectural designs and avant-garde furniture paved the way for fields such as fashion, graphic design, and painting. At the Bauhaus, disciplines drew inspiration from one another, blurring the boundaries between art and industry. When the school closed in 1933, however, many design projects were left unfinished.

To revive some of these interrupted Bauhaus design projects, Adobe has launched the "Hidden Treasures" initiative to recreate five typefaces originally designed by five of the school's masters: Joost Schmidt, Xanti Schawinsky, Reinhold Rossig, Carl Marx, and Alfred Arndt.

The Museu de Arte de São Paulo has put up for sale a limited edition of one hundred crystal easels designed by Lina Bo Bardi. Originally introduced in 1968 and removed from the museum in 1996, the iconic easels were redesigned by the firm Metro Arquitetos and brought back to the MASP gallery in 2015. Each unit costs R$ 10,000, and the proceeds will support the museum's activities.

Announced in 2016, the Cidade Matarazzo complex is currently under construction near Paulista Avenue in São Paulo. In addition to a tower designed by Jean Nouvel, the development includes the restoration of the former Matarazzo Hospital and the Santa Luzia Church, both heritage-listed by Condephaat – the Council for the Defense of Historical, Archaeological, Artistic, and Tourist Heritage of the State of São Paulo.

To protect the church's structure during excavation work, the engineering team behind the Grupo Allard development carried out a delicate procedure to keep the 1,200-ton building suspended 31 meters above the ground. 

Documenting the urban landscape is a task photographers have undertaken almost since the birth of photography in the second half of the nineteenth century. Inexhaustible, the city continues to serve as raw material for photography, which, in turn, offers an image of the city that is simultaneously identical to and distinct from what is felt when experiencing the urban space.

Mauro Restiffe is perhaps one of the photographers who most deeply experiences the city and its residual spaces—an aspect that becomes immediately apparent upon viewing the selection of photographs chosen for the exhibition São Paulo, Out of Reach, on display at the Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo, curated by Thyago Nogueira. Bringing together photos that record moments of urban transformation and decay in places such as Cracolândia, Bom Retiro, Luz, Itaquera, and Ipiranga, among other neighborhoods, Restiffe composes a fragmented image of São Paulo between 2012 and 2014. Yet—partly due to his technique and, above all, his gaze—it also represents other eras of this metropolis.

The debate over the roles of architects and engineers and the perceived overlap of their professional scopes has driven a series of recent protests in Portugal, sparked by parliament's approval of a bill that allows engineers to sign off on architectural projects.

Under these circumstances, the frustration of architects and their resentment toward their engineering colleagues is understandable. However, in an article published by the newspaper Público.pt, Gonçalo Cano Moniz offers an alternative perspective. In hopes of reversing this unfortunate decision, he seeks to reunite engineering and architecture as the complementary fields they are, using historical arguments to shift the focus to the true consequence of the legislation: the weakening of both professions—architecture for having been undermined, and engineering for being assigned "responsibilities for which it is clearly unprepared."

The new award, a partnership between the Tomie Ohtake Institute and Leroy Merlin, has extended its submission deadline. Until August 10, university students of any discipline can submit design projects related to products, furniture, fashion, interiors, landscaping, web, graphics, services, and other fields, under the theme SHARE.

School buildings house complex systems. From kindergarten to university faculty, the journey through the levels of learning consists of an accumulation of vital experiences resulting from the interaction between these systems.

The educational function, as functionalism termed it, now builds its environments under new paradigms that reflect and respond to an increasingly diverse and complex social agenda.

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has released the publication Urbanized Areas of Brazil, which maps the urban footprints of major Brazilian cities. Covering the changes that occurred between 2011 and 2015, the study presents an overview of the country's recent urbanization process.

This week, Congress approved the creation of 231 positions for the office of the federal interventor in Rio de Janeiro and the Extraordinary Ministry of Public Security — to fund these new roles, positions will be eliminated at the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (Iphan).

Of the newly created positions, all of which are appointed roles, 67 will be allocated to the office of the interventor, General Walter Braga Netto, and 164 will be chosen by the Extraordinary Minister of Public Security, Raul Jungmann.

Afastado de Quem Fala is a diptych short film about Adega Baía da Arruda, a project by the Portuguese-Swiss studio Barão-Hutter, built on Pico Island in 2017.

Over the past five years, Lisbon has attracted significant international attention, driving major changes in the Portuguese capital's urban life. From foreign technology investment to the promotion of cultural initiatives, these transformations are both positive and negative—a complex issue currently debated through the lens of gentrification, echoing developments in other global cities such as Berlin, Portland, and San Francisco.

On the cultural front, the city boasts an impressive diversity of initiatives, ranging from the opening of major, world-class museums—such as MAAT and Coches—to a rich culture of urban graffiti murals. This scene is supported by initiatives like the Underdogs cultural platform, which has worked with artists from around the world since 2013 to bring these paintings to the city's walls.

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With the votes counted, the first round of the presidential election was not enough to determine the country's next political leader; candidates Fernando Haddad, of the Workers' Party, and Jair Bolsonaro, of the Social Liberal Party, will face off once again in the runoff vote on October 28.

Political differences and ideological discrepancies aside, the next president will have, among many other tasks, the responsibility of providing federal support for the development of Brazilian cities—home to about 87% of the country's population. To contribute to the debate and—if it is ArchDaily's place to do so—help undecided voters make up their minds, we have compiled below the proposals of both presidential candidates for the future of cities, based on their respective government platforms, covering topics such as housing, urban development, infrastructure, sustainability, mobility, and the right to the city.

Last Thursday, during the opening of the exhibition featuring the 13 finalist projects – selected from 244 submissions representing 17 Brazilian states and the Federal District – the winners of the 5th Instituto Tomie Ohtake AkzoNobel Architecture Prize were announced.

Heritage-listed at both the state and federal levels, Teatro Oficina, designed by Lina Bo Bardi and Edson Elito, is at risk of having its surroundings profoundly altered by the construction of two 100-meter-tall residential towers. The project, led by the Silvio Santos Group, was approved by the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute (Iphan) during a meeting on May 29.

One of São Paulo's primary historical and tourist landmarks, the Pateo do Collegio—the founding site of the state capital—awoke with its facade covered in graffiti. "Olhai por nois" [Look out for us] is the phrase that, in red letters, covers the facade of the Museum of Sacred Art and the chapel of the complex, which belongs to the Society of Jesus.

Under Brazil's environmental crimes law, defacing monuments is a crime, and perpetrators can face up to one year in prison. At the time of publication, those responsible for the act had not been identified by the Metropolitan Civil Guard.