Following the donation of Paulo Mendes da Rocha's complete archive to the Casa da Arquitectura in Portugal, a major debate arose in Brazil, with many expressing regret over seeing the physical documentation of his intellectual and built work leave the country. Through an open letter released today, Nuno Sampaio, Executive Director of the Casa da Arquitectura, proposes institutional collaboration protocols with Brazilian entities.

What does the home of the future hold for us? And for whom will it become a reality? These questions served as the guiding principles for The Future of Living - Contrasts. With a keen eye on identifying the emerging movements that shape how we will live tomorrow, the research team at the Istituto Europeo di Design used the world during the COVID-19 pandemic as their primary backdrop. Drawing from this context, rather than simply discussing housing trends, the researchers address the challenges that must be resolved to make these trends a reality for everyone, rather than a mere set of forecasts that segregate rather than create opportunities.

Downtown São Paulo will receive a statue honoring Joaquim Pinto de Oliveira, an enslaved Black 18th-century architect known as Tebas. The announcement was made yesterday, September 10, by Mayor Bruno Covas at the São Paulo City Council. 

The winners of the 2nd Tomie Ohtake Institute Leroy Merlin Design Award have been announced. Originally scheduled to take place in person at the Tomie Ohtake Institute alongside an exhibition of the projects, the awards were instead announced via video due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

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The composition of interior spaces is essential to human well-being. During the Covid-19 pandemic, this topic gained even greater prominence, as the design of indoor environments—beyond being aesthetically pleasing—can also help prevent disease and directly influence how we feel.

When considering the history of occupation in the city of São Paulo and the pursuit of a universal, democratic urban planning, understanding the role and movement of women in the urban context—particularly on the city's periphery—becomes essential. Here, we look at the Jardim Damasceno neighborhood and its spaces in motion—the stairways—to understand how these bodies express themselves in this context, their actions and transformations, and how gender is perceived by them. 

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The donation of Paulo Mendes da Rocha's archive to Casa da Arquitectura, an institution based in Matosinhos, Portugal, has sparked intense debate among architects and academics since its announcement early last week. Both opposing and supportive opinions were widely shared on social media and news outlets, and an institutional collaboration agreement between FAUUSP and Casa da Arquitectura was even proposed.

In light of the debate surrounding the preservation of architecture and urbanism collections in Brazil, IABsp published an open letter calling for a national network of archives. Read the full letter below:

Launched last month, the Fortaleza Mais Verde program aims to create a network of micro-parks in the capital of Ceará and implement tree-lined bicycle corridors. Execution of the plan began in August.

"The purpose of the proposal is to preserve, secure, and progressively expand the green cover of the City of Fortaleza, making these areas usable for the population to enjoy," said the city's mayor, Roberto Cláudio. "We have several landscaping and urban planning initiatives underway. We expect to receive suggestions regarding this new pilot project. We want to ensure it is implemented and made irreversible," he added.

To maintain the flow of reliable information about Covid-19, facilitate hand hygiene for users, and pay tribute to the victims of the pandemic, the city of São Paulo has installed a series of multipurpose urban fixtures called “Totens Urbanos – Memorial Pró-Saúde”.

The project came to fruition following a meeting between architect Leonardo Fernandes Dias—whose design proposal won the popular vote in the international Coronavirus Design Competition by the GoDesignClass platform—and the organizers of the Rede Nacional de Apoio às Famílias e Vítimas da Covid (National Support Network for Families and Victims of Covid), an independent, voluntary civil society initiative providing specialized support. Temporary and emergency-focused in nature, the series of totems will occupy 17 high-traffic locations across the city until November.

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Located at the intersection of Nove de Julho and São Gabriel (formerly Flora) avenues and Groelândia Street, between the neighborhoods of Jardim América and Itaim-Bibi, this complex, with its three twelve-story buildings, became a prominent landmark on one of the most important corridors connecting downtown São Paulo to the city's southern zone.

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When was the last time you walked through a market without being conscious of people walking nearby, or took a stroll in your neighborhood park without worrying about the hygiene of your surroundings?

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill. Even though residents in many places have already spent long periods locked down at home, we are still adapting to this new normal, working to reshape how we interact with others and with outdoor public spaces.

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In its 7th edition, the Saint-Gobain Architecture-Sustainable Habitat Award seeks projects and buildings that offer comfort and innovative solutions while preserving the environment and promoting sustainability within the Brazilian construction industry.

Frequently used in wet areas, such as bathrooms and kitchens, as well as outdoor spaces like plazas and sidewalks, cement tiles are increasingly being incorporated into other rooms in interior design projects. This is due not only to their beauty, but also to their ability to adapt to the specific demands of different uses, along with practical benefits like easy cleaning.

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The 2018 discovery of nine skeletal remains in São Paulo's current Liberdade neighborhood brought to light physical evidence of the city's first public necropolis, the Cemitério dos Aflitos (Cemetery of the Afflicted), also known as the Cemitério dos Enforcados (Cemetery of the Hanged). According to municipal archival documents, between 1775 and 1858, the cemetery was primarily the final resting place for the marginalized: enslaved Black men and women, the poor, the destitute, and those condemned to the gallows. While the Cemitério dos Aflitos was a scattered territory of those cast out of São Paulo society, the Irmandade do Rosário (Sisterhood of the Rosary), founded in 1720, was established as a demarcated Black territory in the city, where enslaved, freed, and free people lived together, held funerals, celebrated festivals, and practiced religious devotions, "when this segment of São Paulo's population would burst onto the streets together, with their characteristic attire, adornments, and sounds" (WISSENBACH, 1988: 206-7).

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Situated on a suburban lot in Gallarate, in Italy's Lombardy region, the latest project by Álvaro Siza rises in two travertine marble blocks: a 20-unit residential complex developed in partnership with the Portuguese firm COR Arquitectos. Facing the busy Via Roma and the quiet Via Postporta, the development reinterprets two local typologies—the Lombard courtyard and the isolated villa—in a play of volumes that recalls the geometries of another Siza masterpiece, the Porto School of Architecture.

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Design is more than product design. It is also the construction of personas, with their bodies and souls. The natural state is just one of the design parameters. We are the design of ourselves, in permanent transformation.

Guilherme Wisnik talks with Ivana Wonder, a persona created by designer Victor Ivanon. Possessing a powerful voice and breaking down the boundaries between masculine and feminine, Ivana leads a multisensory experience of emotion and longing. From the central spotlight of a damp cabaret, this haunting and ethereal figure emerges.

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Part of the archive of the architect Hans Broos has been cataloged, treated, and digitized, and is now available for online and in-person consultation at the Ingo Hering Memory Center of the Hermann Hering Foundation.

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Although the urban fabric of Buenos Aires is characterized by a heterogeneous and constantly changing morphological condition, within the range of low-density housing, it is possible to detect certain recurring typologies that emerged from the interplay of successive historical variables—such as block subdivision strategies, urban regulations and their subsequent updates, or the building traditions of those who built the city. One of these identifiable typologies is the PH, whose name derives from *Propiedad Horizontal* (Horizontal Property), a regulation that allowed the development of individual homes within a single plot.

Considered one of the world's oldest construction techniques, structural masonry in Brazil was first used during the colonial period with stone, adobe, and rammed earth. Since then, the method has evolved, finding renewed viability through contemporary materials such as modular concrete blocks or load-bearing ceramic blocks. 

In this construction method, where the structure and enclosure are built simultaneously, columns and beams are unnecessary. Consequently, the walls serve a dual purpose: they define the spaces while functioning as the load-bearing structure of the building.

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Architect and urban planner Maria Elisa Baptista is the new President of the National Board of the IAB. She succeeds Nivaldo Andrade, whose term ended on September 26 of this year. In nearly a century of existence, this is the first time a woman has held the position.

The leadership team also includes Rafael Pavan dos Passos (National Vice President, IAB-RS), Cláudio Listher Marques Bahia (Secretary General, IAB-MG), Rosilene Guedes Souza (Administrative-Financial Director, IAB-MG), Luiz Eduardo Sarmento Araújo (Cultural Director, IAB-DF), Fernando Túlio Salva Rocha Franco (Extraordinary Vice President of Institutional Relations, IAB-SP), and Luiza Rego Dias Coelho (Extraordinary Vice President of Affirmative Action, IAB-DF).

The first monument to the victims of the novel coronavirus in Brazil has been inaugurated. Named In-finito, the memorial was installed at the Penitência Cemetery and Crematorium, in Rio de Janeiro's port area, designed by architect Crisa Santos, of the collective of the same name.

The initiative came from the architect herself, who developed the project with the goal of donating it to public and private cemeteries, as well as municipalities, companies, or other institutions wishing to pay tribute to Covid-19 victims anywhere in the country.

The Industrial Workers' Retirement and Pension Institute (IAPI) commissioned the prominent Rio de Janeiro architect Paulo Antunes Ribeiro, national president of the Institute of Architects of Brazil (IAB) in the 1950s, to design this project in the industrial neighborhood of Mooca, an area already highly consolidated by the 1940s. Occupying a large urban void, the housing complex consists of seventeen blocks arranged to follow a rational layout, though without the same geometric rigor that Attilio Corrêa Lima had adopted at Várzea do Carmo. Within Mooca's fragmented urban fabric, Ribeiro introduced a modern urban design that eliminated traditional subdivision lots, creating a large public space where the blocks are integrated into green areas.

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In August 2019, Eternit presented its photovoltaic solar tile at Intersolar South America. This first-of-its-kind product in the country has just received Inmetro certification for production. The model had already been approved by the institute, and with this certification, the first concrete tile capable of generating energy—developed in Brazil—can now be marketed.

Those who install these tiles on their homes will be able to capture sunlight to produce electricity—without the need for additional panels. This technology became globally known through Tesla's solar tiles.

Architecture and urbanism are ways of materializing what is to come. Yet, how can we design a common future while keeping this future open to new meanings and in constant motion, driven by the subjects who appropriate it? How can architects understand themselves as part of the movement to revalue collective spaces? How can we use this tool to distribute power—building direct democracy and free behavior through participation in everyday life? How can we recognize relationship as a tool for constructing an architecture of freedom?

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