Articles by Eduardo Souza

The study of rocks allows us to understand the formation of our earth. Its types, the formed designs, the layers, all reveal the story. Along with the atmosphere and the hydrosphere, the lithosphere is one of the great pieces of the earth system, supporting the biosphere. This outermost solid layer of the planet is made up of rocks and soils; as for rocks, there are several ways to classify them. The most common is to separate them according to their formation processes, such as igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic. While sedimentary rocks constitute about 5% of the earth’s crust, the remaining 95% are igneous or metamorphic rocks.

Curved shapes have always sparked architect’s fascination for evoking nature’s beauty, fluidity, dynamism, and complexity. To replicate these shapes, however, is no easy task. From their two- or three-dimensional representation to their execution in their final materials, this represents an enormous difficulty, which requires technical expertise and a great amount of knowledge to achieve strong results. Thinking of new ways to produce organic shapes from natural materials is even more complicated.

A masterpiece is often defined as the most remarkable work in an artist’s career, one which highlights the height of their techniques and ideals. The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci; Michelangelo’s Pietá; the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. There are many examples, which are not always unanimously agreed upon. But what if what many consider to be the masterpiece was started by someone else, the credited creator didn’t live to see its completion, and almost all of its documentation was destroyed? Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí and his world-famous Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família are examples of these complications. From a highly crafted stone construction to the most modern 3D printing techniques and high strength concrete, numerous technologies were and continue to be incorporated in the project’s construction.

Caius Sergius Orata is credited, by Vitruvius, with inventing the hypocaust. The word, from the Latin hypocaustum, in a literal translation, means access from below. The hypocaust is a raised floor system on ceramic piles where, at one end, a furnace—where firewood is burned uninterruptedly—provides heat to the underground space, which rises through walls constructed of perforated bricks. Hypocausts heated, through the floor, some of the most opulent buildings of the Roman Empire (including some residences) and, above all, the famous Public Baths.

Anyone who lives in a big city may have dreamed of moving elsewhere and living isolated, in a house among the trees or on a deserted beach. During the pandemic and the endless months of quarantine, many more may have had this same idea. As romantic and seductive as this may seem, however, living deep in nature comes with some important practical challenges. Rarely would anyone give up the little comforts they are used to, like turning on a faucet or charging their cell phone. If the location is, in fact, remote, it may not have electricity, drinking water, gas, sewage, or solid waste collection. But there remain several possibilities for a life with comfort and without neighbors. What are the main solutions to enable this and how can an architectural project provide an off-the-grid life?

The way in which a fire evolves largely depends on the materials that constitute the building, as well as how it is designed. For this reason, there exist a number of fire safety requirements in building codes that must be followed during the initial design stages, as well as the physical construction of a building. In addition to these building codes, there are other considerations that must be taken into account such as thermal comfort, acoustics, and accessibility. When specifying a material or product for part of a building, the architect or design professional must pay close attention to meeting these demands. An example of a suitable material choice is the Insulated Metal Panel (IMP), which can have superior thermal properties, various appearance possibilities and good fire resistance.

Cities are so deeply rooted in the history of mankind that we hardly ask ourselves why we live in them or what the reason is for us to group together in urban settlements. Ciro Pirondi, Brazilian architect, points out that we live in cities because we like to have someone to talk to, while Paulo Mendes da Rocha classifies the city as “the supreme work of architecture.” The city is the world that man builds for himself. These are immense collective constructions, palimpsests, and collages of stories, achievements, and losses.

The ability to detach dividing walls from fixed structural frameworks has been one of the most notable contributions of modern architecture. The moment came when Le Corbusier’s conceived the Dom-ino system, in 1914, and was brought to life in the Villa Savoye, where the structural lattice of pillars contrasted with an independent and even organic distribution of the interior partitions. The so-called open plan has been used and reinvented by architects since then for multiple scales and programs, with a flexibility that allows for the creation of large spaces with or without partitions. But one important nuisance that plagues the open plan it that is often difficult to create closed spaces when necessary, which can improve acoustic qualities and the possibility of natural light. Operable partitions serve this purpose through various mechanisms, such as sliding, folding, or wheeled panels, but they do not always facilitate the necessary conditions. Directly addressing these issues, Skyfold has developed the solution: operable walls that fold vertically and remain hidden when retracted.

Popularly known as the lotus, the aquatic species Nelumbo nucifera has a useful particularity. Its leaves are self-cleaning, or ultra-hydrophobic. This means that no particles of dirt or water adhere to its leaf, which is especially useful in the humid and muddy environments where the plant typically grows. However, this effect does not derive from a perfectly smooth surface or a resinous layer on the leaves. The lotus is, in fact, full of tiny folds that reduce the area of the contact surface and repel all the particles that try to adhere there. The lotus effect has been studied by nanotechnologists in order to apply this same effect to products, such as surfaces, paints, fabrics, and tiles that can easily clean themselves. As trivial as this may seem, when we think of the resources applied to cleaning skyscraper glass or even of the reduction in photovoltaic energy generation due to dust on solar panels, we can get a sense of the infinite possibilities that hydrophobic surfaces could represent.

Yes, we know. We have been talking a lot about carbon. Not only here, but everywhere people seem to be discussing the greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide, fossil fuels, carbon sequestration, and several other seemingly esoteric terms that have increasingly permeated our daily lives. But why is carbon so important and why do we, as architects, architecture students, or architecture enthusiasts, have to care about something that seems so intangible?