Recently, Sesc Avenida Paulista launched an app allowing users worldwide to immerse themselves in the panoramic views from the venue's Lookout, explore georeferenced tours covering topics as diverse as local cultural centers and native tree species, listen to audio tours about the avenue or the Brazilian artworks exhibited on-site, play a composition game inspired by the building's facade, and access the full events calendar, among other features and functionalities. The app is available for free download here and in the official Apple and Google stores.

The São Paulo Court of Justice today cleared the concession of Ibirapuera Park, the largest in the state capital, to the private sector. According to reports by Folha de S. Paulo, the process had been suspended since March of this year, after being challenged by the Public Prosecutor's Office and Green Party council member Gilberto Natalini.

On Saturday, September 21, the City of Paris inaugurated the Marielle Franco Garden in honor of the Brazilian councilwoman assassinated in 2018 in Rio de Janeiro. Located in the city's 10th arrondissement, next to the Gare de l'Est, one of the French capital's main train stations, the project was led by the European Network for Democracy in Brazil (Red-Br) association with the support of the collectives Autres Brésils, France Amérique Latine, Amnesty International France, Coletiva Marielles, Ligue des Droits de l’Homme, Inter LGBT, and Amis des Sans Terre.

Taking the opportunity of our participation in the 9th Architecture and Urbanism Week of the Architecture and Urbanism program at the Centro de Ensino Superior de Juiz de Fora (CES/JF), we at Arquicast recorded this biweekly episode based on the event's theme: Scales and Places. Held in May, the week-long event was organized by the program's students and featured a series of lectures and activities, including this special episode. We address the relationships regarding the importance of scale and place in design education and practice across their various dimensions. Our guest was architect and professor Frederico Halfeld, who shared his experience as an educator alongside other insights on the topic.

The City of Salvador is launching the second phase of the "Eu Curto Meu Passeio" program, which aims to promote the renovation of poorly maintained sidewalks that pose a risk to the public.

In his research presented in 2014, Eduardo Gurian begins the introduction by posing the following questions: "Could the greatness of an architectural work be defined solely by the brilliant gesture and capacity for synthesis of its author? Or should we take into account its utility and its capacity to meet the needs for which it was designed? Or even listen to those who actually use the space and question their satisfaction?" With these questions in mind, the researcher analyzes the evolution of the uses and occupation of the Ibirapuera Park Canopy, designed by Oscar Niemeyer. The master's thesis was advised by Professor Helena Aparecida Ayoub Silva, PhD, within the graduate program at FAUUSP. Read the author's abstract below.

This week's Arquicast Interview features a São Paulo-based firm with four partners who understand the value and importance of an architectural project to the client. With diverse experience across various typologies and project scales, they seek to research and develop new ways of practicing architecture, resulting in a contemporary body of work. Their projects have been exhibited at Biennials in Venice, Rotterdam, and Quito, and have won several national and international awards. One of the most iconic projects in the firm's history was a house built for a very special client: Dona Dalva, who saved money from years of hard work to build her home in Vila Matilde. The guest for this interview is Danilo Terra, from Terra e Tuma Arquitetos Associados.

The São Paulo Association of Art Critics (APCA) announced yesterday the list of winners for the 2019 APCA Award. The awards are divided into ten categories, encompassing architecture, visual arts, cinema, literature, fashion, popular music, radio, theater, children's theater, and television.

Since 2010, APCA has included architecture critics, who this year presented seven awards: best architectural work; environmental resistance; promotion of architecture in public debate; appreciation of architectural heritage; career dedicated to public university and academic research; urbanity; and urban appropriation.

A crowdfunding campaign is now open to fund the creation of the "Mulheres na Cidade" guide. Conceived by Carmen Guerreiro and Fernanda Carpegiani, communicators and founders of Formiga-me, the guide will map locations in São Paulo that value, welcome, and bring together women's learning and experiences in the capital.

The restoration and reconstruction of Notre-Dame Cathedral—one of the most well-preserved examples of Gothic architecture, tragically devastated by a fire this week—will take several years (five, according to French President Emmanuel Macron's promise) and hundreds of millions of euros. Meanwhile, Patrick Chauvet, rector of the famous Parisian icon, has proposed building a "temporary" wooden cathedral to welcome worshippers and tourists.

The transformations in the civil construction production model historically proposed by housing movements through self-managed *mutirões* (mutual-aid efforts) in Brazil, compared to market-driven production modes, are not limited to the labor force responsible for undertaking construction. That is, it is not merely a swap of wage labor for decommodified mutual-aid work. Instead, these innovations span various spheres, from architectural design—conceived from a collective perspective and as a common good that positions the mutual-aid builder as "author, producer, and future user"—to the production mode itself. Unlike the traditional model, in this framework "it is not possible to increase productivity through increased exploitation, precarization, overtime, and layoffs, but only through the invention of new procedures and construction techniques." This theme is a subject of debate for many architects, both in the theoretical arena and in practice and experimentation, where the construction site becomes the stage for efforts toward rationalization, optimization, and horizontal processes.

Human figures take center stage over buildings and streets through the lens of photographer Carlos Moreira, 82. Urban space is depicted through framings suggested not only by historical monuments (which are indeed there) but, above all, by the body and its actions. What emerges is an emotional, living vision of cities, capable of triggering a sensory expansion of spatial portraits.

Álvaro Siza was born in 1933, the same year the Bauhaus closed its doors. He is perhaps the last practicing modernist, or at least the most significant voice still carrying the incomplete modern project into the 21st century. The exhibition Siza - Unseen and Unknown, opening on February 20 at the Tchoban Foundation in Berlin, presents a series of one hundred sketches that narrate the Portuguese master's work, interwoven with the modern project and personal stories.

Real estate speculation is undoubtedly the greatest villain singled out by those who study, inhabit, or are simply interested in cities today. It gets blamed for practically every urban problem: whether a city is too dense or too sprawling, choked with traffic or prohibitively expensive; whether local politics are corrupt or the poor are marginalized to the periphery; whether corporations profit from public investments or public infrastructure lies idle; whether historic heritage is destroyed, new buildings alter the cityscape, or informal settlements are burned down. The list is endless.

The "Building of the Year" has reached its tenth edition and is now considered the world's largest crowd-voted architecture award, showcasing the projects that you, our readers, consider the most significant of the year. In the 2019 edition, "Sesc 24 de Maio," one of the most recent landmarks of Brazilian architecture, was voted the winner in the Public Architecture category, while the Portuguese "Capelas Imaculada e Cheia de Graça" project also stood out in the Religious Architecture category. However, this is not the first time both countries have been featured among the award winners. With this in mind, we look back at the last five years of the awards, showcasing the Brazilian and Portuguese projects that stood out across various categories to offer a glimpse of the best work being produced in both Portuguese-speaking nations.

Federal Police experts found strong evidence that a series of makeshift connections in the electrical wiring caused the fire that swept through the National Museum eight months ago, keeping its doors closed ever since.

What if you could send a WhatsApp message and a bright green van delivered native tree saplings directly to you? In Salvador, the local government does exactly that. Painted with the image of a biodiverse Brazilian forest, this green van is part of the "Disque Mata Atlântica" (Atlantic Forest Hotline) program. Since its launch in 2017, the initiative has delivered 4,500 trees to residents wishing to plant them at home.

Starting February 11, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand is offering a course on the life and work of architect Lina Bo Bardi. Lina Bo Bardi from Ideas to Construction: Architecture as Cultural Action will be coordinated by Marina Grinover, founding partner of the firm Base Urbana and author of two books on the Italian-Brazilian architect.

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In an interview with Goma Oficina, David Barragán shares insights into the practice of Al Borde, an architecture firm based in Quito, Ecuador, which he leads alongside Pascual Gangotena, Marialuisa Borja, and Esteban Benavides.

The firm's work directly addresses the divide between manual and intellectual labor in architectural practice. Although this division is the product of historical and social construction, it is still treated today almost as an "indisputable scientific fact," given the prevailing silence surrounding the issue.

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In the world of architecture, technical solutions designed for indoor comfort are frequently transformed into expressive features or unique design details. This is especially true of reflecting pools—features that significantly improve thermal comfort in buildings while simultaneously serving as elements of aesthetic interest, creating striking moments wherever they are implemented.

Between 1985 and 1989, the city of Olinda (Pernambuco) served as the pilot site for a federal program that was to be implemented in 48 other Brazilian cities. Among other goals, this program sought to provide social housing in built environments and preserve local memory and ways of life by ensuring the permanence of traditional residents. Though still little known in the history of cultural heritage and social housing policies in Brazil, this plan points the way toward managing territories based on the social and cultural practices of their inhabitants.

Female architects and urban planners account for 63.47% of the 174,513 registered professionals currently in the country. Despite being the majority in the profession, the spotlight remains focused on men. To break this paradigm and promote dialogue and ways to foster the inclusion and visibility of women in the multiple fields of Architecture and Urban Planning, the Council of Architecture and Urbanism of Rio de Janeiro (CAU/RJ) has launched the CAU + Mulheres Award.

One of the most beloved and undeniably successful museums in the Portuguese-speaking world, the Museum of the Portuguese Language is preparing to reopen its doors after the fire it suffered in 2015. The opportunity to rethink the institution and understand its relationship with the public were the guiding principles that aligned with the new usage needs and desires for improvement that permeated the entire concept behind the building's rehabilitation.

Today, October 18, the Casa da Arquitectura – Portuguese Center for Architecture opens the exhibition “Souto de Moura – Memory, Projects, Works,” which will remain on display until September 6, 2020. Curated by Francesco Dal Co and Nuno Graça Moura, the exhibition offers a unique monographic reading of the work of Eduardo Souto de Moura, 2011 Pritzker Prize laureate and one of the most prestigious Portuguese architects.