The Gustavo Capanema Palace will officially serve as one of the venues for the 27th World Congress of Architects – UIA 2020 Rio. The authorization agreement for the building's use was signed on Thursday, September 20, during an event marking the completion of the restoration work on the building's facades. The ceremony was attended by the Minister of Culture; the president of Iphan, Kátia Bogéa; the president of the IAB, Nivaldo de Andrade; the UIA Vice President for the Americas, Roberto Simon; the president of UIA2020RIO, Sérgio Magalhães; as well as the presidents of CAU/BR and CAU/RJ, Luciano Guimarães and Jeferson Salazar, respectively.

When designing a building, a recurring thought is often how long it will endure. Once construction is complete and the building opens its doors to users, its lifespan begins, and it gradually establishes its legacy. This raises the question of how it will be remembered, of what imprint the building will leave on our minds: architectural memory. And like human memory, architectural memory is fickle. Buildings are forgotten just as memories fade.

Madrid's architecture makes excellent use of memory. Styles characteristic of its historic heritage remain standing today, fully functional. The Neo-Mudéjar style, for example, took root at the end of the 19th century; today, numerous surviving examples remain vital urban hubs, housing uses such as hospitals, universities, schools, care homes, cultural centers, and museums.

Closed for more than two years for renovations, the Altino Arantes Building, affectionately nicknamed Banespão by locals, will reopen to the public tomorrow in celebration of São Paulo's 464th anniversary. Built in 1947 to house the headquarters of the State Bank of São Paulo (Banespa), the 161-meter-tall skyscraper offered visitors access to its observation deck with panoramic views of the city.

Now, the downtown icon will feature a series of attractions including a museum on the building's history, art exhibitions, a skate park, and a loft available for rent on Airbnb.

From the Fundación Arquia Blog, architect María Álvarez García presents an article on the controversial revival of garden cities in England's urban planning, which is depopulating city centers—proposals that lead to an inevitable segregation of uses that is neither sustainable nor conducive to social and economic development.

I have always felt a certain disconnect between the narrative found in popular songs, sociological and anthropological texts, and the actual experience of Carnival in Brazil. It is a gap between the promise of a rich, pluralistic festivity and the reality of someone born in the 1980s, growing up amidst the rise of mass culture, widespread violence, and a dehumanizing urbanization that leads to the abandonment or commercialization of urban rituals.

When we think of architecture in broad terms, certain masterpieces of the past inevitably come to mind—buildings constructed to withstand the passage of time, which have found an ally in the years, cementing their place in human history. Yet permanence is a heavy burden to bear, and architecture that is ephemeral by program should not be dismissed as less important.

Do you often find yourself complaining about a client’s lack of design sensibility? Do you frequently criticize the gap between renderings and reality? Do you often wish your architectural designs were closer to perfection?
How can these issues be resolved before a building is actually constructed?
There is only one answer: VR technology!
It allows clients to experience fully simulated designs, validating your ideas, while enabling designers to experience spaces beforehand to optimize their designs.
But what exactly is VR, and how powerful can it be?

Technological progress and development are increasingly shaping architectural design and representation. Because architecture inherently revolves around spatial experience, it provides a vast canvas for the application of VR technology. As a leading global provider of architectural VR technology, Sheencity has developed its core product, Mars, leveraging VR to allow projects to be immersively experienced and refined, while outputting animations and renderings at breakneck speeds. Directly compatible with the most common modeling software used by architects—such as SketchUp, Rhino, and 3ds Max—Mars instantly converts designs into VR scenes, delivering real-time rendering.

An advocate for architecture closer to the natural environment and focused on people, Toyo Ito is currently one of the world's most influential and award-winning Japanese architects. During a visit to Brazil, Ito spoke to Haus magazine about the verticalization of cities—especially Tokyo—the ethereal qualities of architecture, and the lessons of contemporary Japanese architecture for the world.

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Last May, the Canary Islands International Environmental Film Festival (FICMEC) celebrated its twentieth edition in Garachico, a small coastal town in northern Tenerife. On this occasion, a group of students from the School of Architecture at the Universidad Europea de Canarias participated in the festival by designing and constructing a series of four ephemeral architectural installations that boldly colonized iconic spots along Garachico's waterfront promenade.

Through four interventions, the students transformed the promenade with the dual goal of raising visibility for the festival and increasing public awareness of the impact of our daily habits on the environment.

Explore the proposals below.

The Competition for Urban Space Intervention was created to establish a tradition of developing innovative ideas on contemporary themes through temporary installations in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico. Organized by the Festival Provincia, the event will take place in April 2018, offering locals, national visitors, and international tourists new experiences to reflect on their environment.

It is a frequent observation that Brazilian cities have grown haphazardly, without proper planning. Likewise, it is often said that Brazil's urban legislation is modern, yet translating these best practices into reality remains a challenge. However, few people actually understand how the gears of urban planning work and how these mechanisms can help guide urban centers toward a better, more sustainable future.

After visiting numerous sites that have been the setting for tragic crimes against humanity and violent conflicts, one can make a simple observation: the space of collective memory is not solely confined to a memorial building that commemorates through names and stories. Particularly in Latin America, it is also a place evoked through gatherings and public demands.

Lima has a strong tradition of courtyard houses, which is why we will always find this typology familiar and captivating. We recognize these courtyards as well-contained and distanced from one another, with each having its own time-space within the home.

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The 'Vivienda para Rosario' (Housing for Rosario) project by Rojkind Arquitectos + Dosa Studio arose in response to the events of 19S, when an earthquake with its epicenter in Morelos shook different areas of the country. In response, various organizations such as Reconstruir México, Pienza Sostenible, and Échale a tu Casa stepped in to support affected families by proposing long-term sustainable solutions. Guided by the premise that demolishing to rebuild from scratch was not the solution, efforts focused on promoting the reuse of existing materials and structures to facilitate diagnostic assessments and prevent future disasters.

Overlooking the Río de la Plata, in the quiet of Laguna del Diario, amidst trees and a vast sky, lies Casa Poseidón, an example of modern Uruguayan architecture designed by Samuel Flores Flores in 1978. Unsurprisingly—as private interests and a lack of awareness have made demolition a recurring theme—its quiet existence is being disrupted to make way for yet another casualty of the real estate market.

The announcement of its demolition, justified by the construction of a building complex, has sparked well-founded criticism from the community seeking to protect the country's tangible architectural heritage. What are your thoughts on this?

Espacio Odeón in Bogotá has announced the winning projects for the open call Odeón o de la contingencia. This marks the Colombian venue's fourth exhibition cycle, for which curators Alejandro Martín Maldonado and Estudio Altiplano have organized an architectural competition that explores the spatial conditions of Odeón, as well as its history, present, and future.

According to the organizers, the exhibition "will present proposals that intervene in the building and question—through humor, play, and fiction—its spatial, heritage, urban, and economic conditions, while speculating on new ways of inhabiting, intervening in, and maintaining it."

One of the most highly anticipated collateral events of the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale was the *Young Architects in Latin America* (YALA) exhibition, an open call organized by Architecture-Studio through its CA’ASI cultural center to mark its tenth anniversary.

Following editions focused on Chinese, Arab, and African architecture, CA'ASI's fourth open call invited young architects from across Latin America to showcase their built work on a global stage. Out of more than 200 submissions, 60 Latin American practices were selected for the digital catalog and the exhibition presented in Venice. In the digital catalog, the organizers note that "in a region so vast, diverse, and in constant flux, we find common characteristics among the submitted works that bear witness to the efforts of young architects to improve habitat conditions in Latin America."

At the exhibition's opening ceremony on May 25, the organizers announced 15 honorable mentions and 3 winners, including practices from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Brazil, among others. Discover them below:

Designed by the firm of Ramos de Azevedo and built in the famous Praça Clovis in downtown São Paulo between the 1920s and 1940s, the Palácio da Justiça de São Paulo occupies an area of 25,000 square meters. The building features a symmetrical layout with four corner towers whose wings house the interior spaces.

Between 2004 and 2009, the building's facades and the copper roof of the Jury Hall were restored by the firm APBA – Arquiteto Paulo Bastos e Associados. Later, between 2014 and 2016, another section of the building was restored by Kruchin Arquitetura.

Following his participation in the first edition of the National Architecture Congress of Ecuador (CNAE), we spoke with Fredy Massad, an Argentine architect and critic based in Spain. In a highly attended lecture, he warned of what he sees as the danger posed by starchitects—self-made figures operating beyond the practice of architecture and laden with a thick emotional layer.

At the same time, the author of Crítica de Choque described the current state of the discipline, linking populism, deglobalization, and architecture: arguing that the Pritzker Prizes awarded to Alejandro Aravena and RCR Arquitectes in 2016 and 2017, respectively, are linked to two types of political populism. According to Massad, one is associated with certain hegemonic leftist forces in Latin America over the last twenty years, while the other is shaped by the global idea of "returning to the village," citing Brexit, Marine Le Pen's National Front in France, and the Catalan independence movement as references for this latter trend.

After winning the elections on November 16, Lluís Comerón Graupera today assumes the presidency of the Higher Council of Colleges of Architects of Spain (CSCAE) for the 2018–2021 term. Founded in 1931, the CSCAE is the organization that unites all regional associations to achieve and defend the general common interest of architecture and its professionals. It also serves as the highest representative body for these associations and the profession before the state administration and international organizations.

According to the CSCAE, Comerón Graupera holds an architecture degree from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), is an associate professor at ETSAB, and is a co-director at the Vallès School of Architecture (ETSAV). He also runs his own practice, where he has developed a diverse portfolio for both public administrations and the private sector.

Construction is complex. Anyone who has been on a construction site understands this. It is not just about having the right attitude and knowing how to lead a team of skilled craftspeople, masons, and specialists, but also about providing—or at least understanding—the right tools for them to perform each task in the best possible way.

While the construction knowledge gained during your university studies might be minimal until you have a few projects under your belt, learning to recognize the tools available on the market will not only help you save costs, but also speed up construction and reduce physical effort—delivering significant advantages.

Here, we present an overview of the different equipment, tools, and machinery most commonly used in architectural construction.

When it comes to design, the channels opened for information gathering are vital to the success of the process. The diversity and breadth of the audience to whom our questions and inquiries are addressed is so wide that we must design processes that allow everyone to contribute, and to do so constructively on a common playing field, as this is the only way to achieve a collective design. Through our experience, we have tested the effectiveness of different tools and selected those that we at Paisaje Transversal consider most effective.

Since it is always better to provide examples to understand and apply our work to reality, we have decided to use our project in Torrelodones to showcase these tools. This project involves the collaborative design for the remodeling of Pradogrande Park, a park of over 4 hectares located in the area of the Madrid municipality known as La Colonia, which extends through the urban center. The park's current use and the diverse activities it hosts—ranging from local festivals and occasional events to sports fields, play areas, and dog parks—make it even more critical to analyze every change and renovation alongside its users.

How, then, do we propose to listen to both the park and its users?

In early March, students, architects, and designers from Argentina gathered to bring their ideas to life in the second edition of Hello Wood Argentina, an international experience brought by local partners TACADI and MANDARiNA.

For this edition, the chosen theme for 2018 was "CON-TEXT"—a context we consciously build, where balance is achieved through the interaction of each of its parts, and what each part contributes is unique.

Discover the projects built in this edition below.