Romullo Baratto is an architect with a PhD from FAUUSP and Managing Editor of ArchDaily. He previously coordinated the editorial team of the 11th São Paulo Architecture Biennial and served as Managing Editor of ArchDaily Brasil, where he led the platform to win the FNA Award—the first time the honor was granted to a media outlet. He collaborated on the editing of the book "Concrete Jungle", published by gestalten, and has curated architecture exhibitions in Brazil, Chile, Denmark, and Italy, as well as delivered lectures and moderated debates in Spain, the United States, and Portugal. His doctoral thesis investigates the urban landscapes of São Paulo through cinema. His work spans academic research and editorial practice, communicating architecture through texts, interviews, lectures, curatorship, and photography. Follow him on Instagram @romullobf.
On January 27, the fifth anniversary of the Kiss nightclub tragedy, the National Public Architecture Competition for the Kiss Victims Memorial was launched in Santa Maria. The competition is a partnership between the city government, the Institute of Architects of Brazil (IAB RS), and the Association of Families of Victims and Survivors (AVTSM).
Architects from across Brazil may submit their projects via the competition website until March 19. Proposals must adhere to an estimated construction budget of R$ 3 million. The winning project is scheduled to be announced on April 10.
Part of the Eixão Sul, in downtown Brasília, collapsed this morning. Two of the three northbound lanes gave way and plummeted near the Galeria dos Estados, about one kilometer from the Plano Piloto bus station.
According to a report by the news outlet G1, the collapse buried two cars reportedly parked under the overpass, as well as tables from a restaurant. While the Civil Defense reported no casualties so far, there is still a risk that other parts of the concrete slab could collapse.
After four months of activities and exhibitions, the 11th Sao Paulo Architecture Biennial has closed at the end of January. Characterized by a decentralized approach - perhaps more than any other Biennial in the world - the eleventh edition of the event had more than 80 actions in different places of the city, articulated by four main exhibitions and an Observatory, which besides gathering works produced by agents from different regions of Brazil and the world, serves as a file and legacy of the Biennial.
Archdaily Brasil conducted an interview with the content director of this edition of the event, architect Marcos L. Rosa, on the main discussions raised at this Biennial, its multidisciplinary focus and the decentralized aspect of activities and exhibitions.
In response, and coinciding with the 464th anniversary of the city of São Paulo, the offices Brasil Arquitetura and Urbeflux Engenharia Consultiva released an open letter to the city of São Paulo. The letter outlines guidelines for a "necessary change of direction in the management of urban waters," aiming to resolve the impasse over the land's future "for the greater benefit of its citizens and Brazilian culture."
The São Paulo municipal government intends to launch a social leasing program to house homeless people in vacant downtown buildings in exchange for benefits to property owners, who will be able to offset their property tax (IPTU) debts and will be exempt from the progressive property tax on vacant buildings.
The social leasing system has been in place since 2004, currently serving 903 families across six buildings. Residents pay up to 15% of their income for permanent housing without, however, acquiring ownership of the properties, which remain under municipal ownership. The new program has already identified 370 eligible properties and aims to provide 1,000 new units.
An unprecedented initiative for Brazil's representations at the International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, the Muros de Ar exhibition allocated one month for submissions and evaluations of public projects to be included in the curatorial selection occupying the Brazilian pavilion starting May 26. The open call selected 17 projects in Brazil that use architecture as an instrument to mediate conflicts, transition between public and private domains, and connect distinct urban fabrics.
Collectively curated by architects Gabriel Kozlowski, Laura González Fierro, Marcelo Maia Rosa, and Sol Camacho, who were selected by the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo to organize the exhibition, the open call received 289 projects from more than 60 Brazilian cities.
The Urbano Monte World map reconstructed by Stanford University. Image via David Raumsey Map Collection, Stanford University
Stanford University experts digitally assembled what is considered the largest world map produced in the 16th-century. The representation of the world of 1587 by the Milanese cartographer Urbano Monte was divided into 60 pages and published in atlas form, but with clear instructions on how to reassemble it.
David Rumsey, director of the university's historical map collection, acquired the map from a historian in 2017. The publication has only one other handwritten copy in the world and has never been assembled in map form.
The current process of urban development is linked to a global inability to resolve a chronic problem often treated as invisible: the rise in the homeless population. Given the difficulty of addressing the housing deficit and the severity of the situation faced by those without shelter, it is both necessary and relevant to consider emergency solutions that can at least alleviate their suffering and improve their basic living conditions.
Consequently, competition #024 from the Projetar.org portal invites students to design a portable individual shelter for the homeless.
Around 19,000 architects and urban planners from Rio de Janeiro state now have access to a shared office space in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Featuring 20 workstations and two meeting rooms, the space allows professionals to work and host client meetings.
The Council's goal is to bring greater vitality to the use of its headquarters—located at Av. República do Chile, 230, 23rd floor—while strengthening ties with professionals and providing access to an infrastructure that architects and urban planners help maintain. By the end of this year, CAU/RJ expects to increase the number of available workstations and meeting rooms.
Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Public domain photography available at Visualhunt
There are different methods for estimating how green a city is. We can count the parks, add up all green areas, quantify only the forested areas, specify the number of trees planted, and more recently, according to this new, we can now analyze inhabitants perspective. A team of researchers led by Newsha Ghaeli, at MIT's Senseable City Lab has developed a method to find out how green an urban space is from the perspective of pedestrians.
Images taken from Google Street View are processed by an algorithm that estimates the percentage of each image that corresponds to trees and other types of vegetation. "It is important to understand the number of trees and treetops that cover the streets, as this is what we perceive in cities," Ghaeli said.
Check out below the top 10 greenest cities according to the algorithm.
Architecture enthusiasts now have another reason to visit the Azores, in Portugal, as the Pink House, designed by Mezzo Atelier, is now available for short-term rental on the Boutique Homes website. Formerly a stable converted into two residences, the project has attracted international media attention for presenting a rehabilitation solution where, according to the architects, "history and contemporaneity coexist in balance."
The SDG Academy online education platform recently launched a series of free online courses on topics ranging from sustainable development and urbanization to climate change and the use of natural resources. According to the description on its website, SDG Academy "creates and curates free, top-level courses on sustainable development for students around the world."
This week, the Portuguese center for architecture Casa da Arquitectura (House of Architecture) celebrates the opening of its new premises in Matosinhos, Porto. In order to mark the occasion, the architecture museum has planned three days full of activities from the 17th to the 19th of November, with guided tours, performance, talks, music and films.
Within the new gallery spaces, Casa da Arquitectura will hold two exhibitions open to the public, including their inaugural exhibition Poder Arquitectura. Organised by the architects Jorge Carvalho, Pedro Bandeira and Ricardo Carvalho, the exhibition will be open until March 2018, with several talks and debates by national and international figures that have been involved in the exhibition scheduled to take place during this time.
The Cooper Hewitt Museum, also known as the Smithsonian Design Museum, has completed a digitization of its expansive collection dedicated to the field of design that spans thirty centuries and more than 220,000 objects. Now, the collection has been made available on its online page.
Mid-century modern visionaries, Albert Frey and Lina Bo Bardi are exhibited together at the Palm Springs Art Museum for an unprecedented show of models, drawings, design objects, and photographs, opened this fall and will remain on exhibit through January 7, 2018.
French-Brazilian office Triptyque has released plans for a mixed-used, all-wooden highrise. Located on a 1,025-square-meter site in São Paulo, the 13-story building will contain a total of 4,700 square meters of space dedicated to coworking, coliving, and a restaurant.
During an interview with Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias, Pritzker Prize laureate Eduardo Souto de Moura spoke to Ana Sousa Dias about his path through the Fine Arts School, his work alongside Noé Diniz and Álvaro Siza, and his consolidated international career – which he says has given him projects, but not pleasure.
"If I have to do 30 projects, there are three that give me joy and 27 that don't. I'm tired of it. It doesn't annoy me arguing when the assumption is intelligible, but when only time and money matters, it can get ugly. Respecting elections and economically have big profits," said Souto de Moura.
With more than five centuries of recorded history and many more years of pre-colonial traditions and customs, Brazil is listed in UNESCO's World Heritage List with 13 historical sites.
The website Viagem Turismo compiled a list with images and detailed information about each of the 13 sites. The list ranges from the Serra da Capivara National Park, "full of rocky caves covered with rock paintings" made more than 25 thousand years ago, to the modern capital of Brazil, Brasília, founded in 1960.
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