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The orientation and sizing of voids are critical variables when proposing perforated screens on building facades. Analyzing local conditions is fundamental to the performance of this type of solution, which is particularly welcome in countries with high temperatures, such as India. Although its climatic diversity makes generalization difficult, summer temperatures can exceed 40°C across most of the country, demanding specific architectural strategies to mitigate heat and humidity inside buildings.

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This coming Saturday, October 31, marks World Cities Day, an observance established by the United Nations in 2015 as part of the annual “Urban October” initiative. This celebration aims to foster international interest in global urbanization, enhance cooperation among countries to address urbanization challenges, and contribute to sustainable urban development worldwide.

Yet, while the word “city” generically denotes an “agglomeration of people within a defined geographical area,” in practice we know that each of these settlements is shaped by highly unique developmental and cultural factors. With this in mind, we are using this global celebration of cities to focus on our own reality, highlighting the challenges currently faced by Latin American cities.

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October 16 marked World Food Day. On this date in 2020, the Stop Hunger Institute launched a project that includes a community garden and training and educational initiatives for the Paraisópolis community, a favela in São Paulo's South Zone.

Developed in partnership with the Instituto Escola do Povo, the project establishes a new space of approximately 900 square meters for growing vegetables. The goal is to educate, train, and distribute the harvest to registered community residents, ensuring access to healthier food.

After at least five years of study, the time comes for Architecture and Urbanism students to complete their final graduation projects—often called TCC, TFG, or Graduation Projects. In choosing their topics, students highlight civil, urban, or theoretical projects that play a crucial role in sparking debates about the future of our cities, the built environment, urban infrastructure, mobility, and many other fundamental topics that shape how we inhabit space.

On October 29, the 2020 Inequality Map was launched virtually. Produced by Rede Nossa São Paulo and the Cidades Sustentáveis program, the study maps indicators such as mobility, human rights, education, and health across the city's 96 districts.

Although the mapping was conducted using pre-pandemic data, the goal is for the information to guide the development of public policies to mitigate inequality indicators, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Decolonize. You have probably heard this word before, but if you have no idea what it means, you might guess it has something to do with colonization. We Brazilians know all too well what colonization is: we were a colony of Portugal for many years, we speak Portuguese, we eat salted cod at Easter, and we are, for the most part, Catholic because of it.

To understand the word "decolonize," however, is to recognize that colonization brought not only linguistic, religious, and culinary heritages, but also involved widespread exploitation: cultures were erased, local leaders were killed, riches were stolen, and memories were destroyed.

A recently published study by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) reveals the world's best cities for those looking to avoid driving to access basic services, such as schools and healthcare centers, alongside pedestrian access to other amenities.

Among the top-ranked cities for pedestrians are London, Paris, Hong Kong, and Bogotá. More than a thousand cities were evaluated based on the access they offer to those who need to find goods and services relying solely on their own feet. According to the report, US cities are among the least pedestrian-friendly, due to their urban sprawl.

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Located in the central region of South America, Paraguay features a wide variety of geographical conditions, with diverse landscapes and resources. Generally, the territory is characterized by **high humidity** and **mild temperatures** that prevail year-round, with hot, rainy summers and mild winters. Under these conditions, cooling indoor spaces is highly critical, making passive ventilation systems a key consideration during the early stages of design.

As concerns grow regarding the consequences of human activity on a global scale, the search for lower-impact environmental alternatives across various fields has also become more common. In civil construction—a sector where buildings alone account for 33% of global energy consumption and 39% of greenhouse gas emissions—practices such as bioconstruction point toward a different approach, addressing human needs in a way that is inseparable from nature.

Generally speaking, bioconstruction is understood as the design of sustainable environments using low-impact materials and building techniques, taking into account parameters such as adaptability to local conditions and waste management.

Small-scale renovations are among the most common projects in Brazil, but that does not mean they are immune to budgeting and specification issues. A useful tool to avoid these headaches is Pro-Reforma, a free web app that automatically specifies, quantifies, and estimates the products and services needed for a renovation project.

In October, the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI) launched a free basic online course on BIM (Building Information Modeling). Divided into two modules, the Democratizando BIM course is aimed at all professionals in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sectors. To register, simply visit the website and fill out the form.

The 5th edition of the {CURA} Award continues its proposal of hosting ideas competitions with themes aligned with current discussions on architecture, the city, and society, always understanding that architecture is an action-based profession. This time, participants were challenged to design the renovation of an apartment in the iconic Copan Building, designed by Oscar Niemeyer in downtown São Paulo.

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The abandoned city is a classic suspense setting, a place of terror and degeneration, a stimulating blend of danger and freedom. An ambience that ambiguously incites both repulsion and curiosity. A dark, hidden, and marginal space that seems to mourn, in its haunting silence, the void left by those who once lived there. Among its fragments scattered across the floor, fear, discovery, and the inevitable nostalgia for a past that is not necessarily one's own recreate stories of abandonment. Spaces that once had names, dates, and functions, now slowly decomposing in the solitude of the present.

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In the book “Quarto de Despejo – Diário de Uma Favelada” (published in English as Child of the Dark), Carolina Maria de Jesus recounts, in poetic and dramatic everyday language, the harsh reality of life as a waste picker living in the former Canindé favela in São Paulo, which at the time had about 50,000 residents.

Published in 1960, her text is considered a milestone in Black women's writing in Brazil and has been translated into more than thirteen languages. Carolina's entries offer a unique perspective on the extremely precarious living conditions of a favela resident in late-1950s Brazil—a narrative previously ignored or simply unknown to the general public, let alone to policymakers.

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The Ícaro Jardins da Graciosa Building, designed by Studio Arthur Casas, was recognized in the Rethinking The Future Awards, an initiative that honors architecture and design projects from around the world across more than 40 categories. Located in Curitiba, the building features 21 apartment units distributed among three exposed concrete towers.

Competing in the residential (over five floors) category, the building designed by Casas features a facade defined by circulation pathways that double as balconies, emphasizing the towers' horizontality. With landscaping by Renata Tilli, these horizontal lines are accentuated by the lush greenery of plants grown in planters along the perimeter of each floor.