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Brazilian architect Marcelo Ferraz, founder of the firm Brasil Arquitetura, is the first guest on Studio Casa, an interview series produced by Casa da Arquitectura - Portuguese Center for Architecture.

Nothing is more rational than using the wind, a natural, free, renewable and healthy resource, to improve the thermal comfort of our projects. The awareness of the finiteness of the resources and the demand for the reduction in the energy consumption has removed air-conditioning systems as the protagonist of any project. Architects and engineers are turning to this more passive system to improve thermal comfort. It is evident that there are extreme climates in which there is no escape, or else the use of artificial systems, but in a large part of the terrestrial surface it is possible to provide a pleasant flow of air through the environments by means of passive systems, especially if the actions are considered during the project stage.

This is a highly complex theme, but we have approached some of the concepts exemplifying them with built projects. A series of ventilation systems can help in the projects: natural cross ventilation, natural induced ventilation, chimney effect and evaporative cooling, which combined with the correct use of constructive elements allows improvement in thermal comfort and decrease in energy consumption.

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With most of our lives spent indoors, the space we occupy has a major role in our psychological behavior. Environmental psychology or Space psychology is, in fact, the interaction between people and the spaces they inhabit. Lighting, colors, configuration, scale, proportions, acoustics, and materials address the senses of the individual and generate a spectrum of feelings and practices.

From inducing warmth and safety, defining well-being, or creating a positive and efficient working environment, space can have a whole lot of impact on how we act or on what we feel; therefore, design and creative measures should be considered according to the social and psychological needs of the occupants.

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For the fourth time, we are giving our readers the responsibility of recognizing and awarding the projects that have made the greatest impact on the profession through the 2020 ArchDaily Brasil Building of the Year Award. By voting, you become part of an impartial network of jurors recognizing the most relevant projects of the past year.

Over the next three weeks, the collective intelligence of our readers will filter through hundreds of projects from Portuguese-speaking countries—Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Macau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe—published in 2019, selecting the best built works in the Portuguese-speaking world.

From a pool of hundreds of projects published in 2019, readers will choose their favorites, with the 15 most voted advancing to the second stage of voting.

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The use of steel in both the past and present is mainly associated with the success of grand industrial and civic structures. But due to the commercialization and standardization of steel profiles, its use in residential projects (thanks to its mechanical properties and fast installation) has resulted in complex and interesting solutions on a domestic scale.

Dive into these 15 construction details from residential projects that have made use of steel structures and cladding. 

Modern architecture established new priorities around living. While the architects associated with this movement had highly heterogeneous interests and pursuits, certain common ground can be found linking their approaches. Grounded in hygienist principles, the lighting and ventilation of architectural spaces became a primary focus. The connection and continuity between interiors and exteriors began to foster an architecture of blurred boundaries, where gardens, terraces, and patios—as well as their urban-scale counterparts: parks, plazas, and boulevards—gained greater prominence. Consequently, solariums, swimming pools, ponds, and all areas associated with "outdoor leisure" began to be designed holistically, as integral parts of the architectural project.

From playful indoor pools to tranquil exterior fountains to soaring waterfalls and grand lakes of enormous proportions, architecture throughout the centuries has engaged with water in endlessly innovative ways. Sometimes serving aesthetic purposes, but just as often acting as centers of activity or promoting sustainability, water features can take countless different forms and serve multiple different purposes. Below, we synthesize a series of water features espoused by innovative contemporary architectural projects, ranging from single-family residential homes to vast commercial complexes.

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Interior gardens and plants produce many day-to-day benefits, like mood boosting and memory enhancing effects. Interior landscape design, also known as "plantscaping", is much more than the act of bringing plants indoors; it's actually about the strategic placement and selection of plant species within an architectural project to highlight and enhance aspects of spatial design.

2019 has been a very fruitful year in architecture, unveiling projects, discourses, and careers that cover most of the multiple layers, interest, and fields related to this discipline, and highlighting how relevant it has become to our societies —from the Pritzker Prize 2019 awarded to Japanese architect Arata Isozaki to the revealed theme of the Venice Biennale 2020. Take a look at the main architectural milestones of this year across the globe.