Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

This episode, we travel to Madrid, Spain, to meet Alberto Campo Baeza.

He quotes Vitruvius, Cicero, and Goya. He speaks of gravity and light, of solids carved by light, of masses defined by time. For him, “architecture, poetry and music are very close, very difficult to separate.”

“Without light, architecture is nothing.” Light constructs time. Gravity constructs space. These are not metaphors, but tools, primary forces. As he puts it, “air is to music as light is in architecture.”

His ambition is disarmingly direct: “When I receive a new commission, I try to make the most beautiful house in the world.” And he makes it clear by saying that “beauty is not reserved to special people.”

Simplicity, for him, is not minimalism. 

Essential, logical, laconic.

“No more than necessary”, he says.

Guests: Alberto Campo Baeza (Madrid, Spain)
Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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#58 BeAr (ES), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

This episode, we travel to Bilbao, Spain, to meet Ane Arce and Iñigo Berasategui, the duo behind BeAr. From their pov, architecture is a discursive practice. “We want to talk with our architecture.” But how can you sustain a discourse without becoming trapped in it?

Every project is an opportunity to begin again. They refuse specialisation and claim a certain naivety as a way of approaching a project. Sometimes, being radical means doing very little. Other times, it means transforming almost everything. “The first radical approach is to understand what is there.”

Tradition, for BeAr, is not something to reproduce literally, but something to reinterpret. Familiar elements can produce radically new forms, without losing their connection to the people who recognise them.

Construction is not what comes after design. It is part of the design process itself. And the process doesn't necessarily end when the building is finished. “The beautiful thing is that the building continues its life on its own.”

After all, “every decision we take on a project has political consequences.”

Guest: Iñigo Berasategui (BeAr, Bilbao, Spain)  

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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This week we travel to Athens, Greece, to meet Konstantinos Pantazis, co-founder of Point Supreme, alongside Marianna Rentzou.

They claim that “architects nowadays have forgotten their larger social role” as it is not just about buildings but the city as a whole. And yet, the city is not singular. “Cities are made out of all of us, our different beliefs and desires.”

Their projects reflect this multiplicity and unfold as open systems.“Every project is like a sample of spaces, conditions, situations.” Not bound by scale. In fact, “we are not interested in any particular scale at all”, they say. But by the possibility of combining fragments, references, and realities. “We try to bring as much ideas, references and situations as possible.”

This openness is also a way of testing clarity. “We want our proposals to be understood by our grandmothers.”

This also extends to how they represent architecture. Their images are constructed worlds: collages of many painters, many photographs, many objects. “It’s not about aesthetics,” they insist. “It’s about allowing the viewer to be free from any particular association.”

It is not about controlling meaning, but about constructing frameworks where meaning can emerge. A strategy not to explain too much but to open things up.

Perhaps, in a time that struggles to imagine the future, their work doesn’t offer a single vision but something more collective: a space where many can emerge.

Guest: Konstantinos Pantazis (Athens, Greece)


Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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This episode, we travel to Zurich, Switzerland, to meet Pablo Donet, who together with Tim Schäfer and Tanja Reimerfounded Donet Schäfer Reimer Architekten (DOSCRE) in 2018.

Their work doesn’t begin with a manifesto. “It’s not about dogmas,” they say. “It’s things we find out by doing things.” Drawing becomes a way of thinking. “Only by drawing, and drawing and drawing again, you suddenly see something, and then you work on it.” Nothing is invented in isolation; everything is tested, evaluated, adapted.

Housing is their main field of experimentation. Project after project, typologies multiply rather than stabilise. What some might call constraints become productive triggers: “we try to take the full potential out of these limitations.” 

Multiplicity is not a weakness but a strategy. “We always fail to choose one image that transports the whole project, there is too much multiplicity.” Columns, windows, colours, plans: differentiation allows architecture to absorb contradictions instead of resolving them too quickly.

They speak of naivety as a tool, of identity elements as ways to compensate for what housing often lacks, and of Zurich as a place that appears progressive yet remains deeply conservative.

“We don’t have a language yet,” they admit. “Sometimes I wish we had.”
Perhaps the work lives precisely in that unresolved space.

Guests: Pablo Donet, DOSCRE (Zurich, Switzerland)
Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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This episode, we travel to Tokyo, Japan, to meet Yuji Mukaiyama, Alyssa Ueno and Yushi Sasada, founders of ULTRA STUDIO, established in 2018. As a young practice, they work from within contradiction; not to resolve it too quickly, but to let it shape the project.

“The client always wants something contradictory,” they say. Between one demand and another, they search for a bridge. “We try to move from problem A to B, this is our design process and part of the identity of the result.” From these tensions, “we always find some kind of abstract form.

The process begins with making. “In the beginning, we do a lot of models, some forms are very abstract.” Connections often emerge by coincidence. “The decision is not made by a master sketch; it’s something inside the process.” Keywords are shared, consensus slowly forms, and drawings evolve. “We are developing a new kind of drawing; not plan, section, or elevation, but something closer to an expanded elevation”. I’ll keep an eye on that. Who is with me?

Their projects resist linear explanation. “We don’t have a step-by-step process. We jump in and understand it almost backwards.” What matters, in the end, is perception. “Architectural form should expand how people see - not only designers, but users and viewers.”

Guests: Yuji Mukaiyama + Alyssa Ueno + Yushi Sasada (Tokyo, Japan)Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Today, we travel to Rotterdam to meet Fokke Moerel, partner at MVRDV,  a practice known for questioning limits, expanding what architecture can be, and asking, relentlessly: “why not?”.

In their work, boundaries never arrive pre-set. “This kind of pre-set boundaries or rules is something that we don’t have.” Every project begins with orientation: “Where are we? First you have to understand where you are to know what you are going to react to.” And with awareness comes responsibility: “you are using a part of the planet, so you better use it well.”

Themes in the office evolve constantly, “sometimes they age, but they never stay the same”.

From rooftop landscapes to mirrored buildings that invite you to take a picture of the world rather than a selfie of yourself, MVRDV stretch the idea of what a building can host and who it can belong to.

“When should you stop pushing?” they ask. “Where can we go even further?” The Depot in Rotterdam answers this directly: an archive once thought to be only 20% accessible is now 95% open to the public; a building unafraid of its own “objectness” and iconicity.

After all, using Fokke words, architecture is about “celebrating every piece of life.”

Cheers to that.

Guest: Fokke Moerel, MVRDV (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

This episode is sponsored by J&J Teixeira.

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Today, we travel to Leipzig, Germany, to meet Anne Femmer and Florian Summa, founders of SUMMACUMFEMMER. Their work resists distance - between drawing and construction, theory and action, doubt and decision. “We like that there is a much deeper connection between planning and actually building it.”

Architecture, for them, begins with questions. “The question is: how many questions can you take and tackle at one time?” They embrace uncertainty as a tool, not an obstacle. “Not knowing the correct answer is often more interesting… there are more and more doubts in our thinking.”

Between the desk and the site, they move freely. “We have this freedom to choose whether we are on the desk or on site.” In that movement, they find clarity and, sometimes, surprise. “Is it still a model or is it already reality?”

They make a disclaimer: “It’s important not to mistake it for a DIY attitude”, as they are interested in seeing the professional side of architecture getting into these questions.

Actually, they mix life and work seamlessly: they have an office, they teach together, they are a couple, they have kids together. “I thought the architecture profession was a space of a its own”; they say, “I didn't realise it was connected to so many other things in the world.”

Guests: Anne Femmer + Florian Summa (Leipzig, Germany)Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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This week, we travel to Neuchâtel, Zurich and Lausanne to meet Anna MacIver-ek and Axel Chevroulet, the duo behind MacIver-ek Chevroulet. Their practice seeks “precision as a tool to achieve an architecture sensitive to its context and generous to its users” - yet for them, precision is inseparable from freedom.

Where lies the balance between control and release? “Sometimes you go to the toilet and when you come back, things have been decided.” Architecture, after all, is a shared process - unpredictable, collective, and alive.

“We started to learn to love this idea of constraints.” Limits, they say, are fertile ground - shaping creativity rather than restricting it. That is how breaking down, reassembling, and connecting become part of their design language, almost “like a motor, you can tear the buildings apart and reuse certain elements.”

They are fascinated by connections, both literal and conceptual. “The connections used to be in the center of architecture but disappeared with the use of concrete that is able to hide all the connections.” What was once visible became hidden, and they seek to bring that clarity back: “Screwing, nailing, or simply placing one thing on top of another. (…) Making knots is insanely efficient. (…) We’re hoping to use magnets soon.”

“You need to have freedom in every scale of representation… everything works in a sketch and nothing works in a sketch.” Between drawings, models, and images, they navigate multiple kinds of precision. “No medium is less precise than another; it is just another type of precision.”

“It’s part of the job to be lost,” they say.

But fear not, “if you have the right process, somehow, you will find a way through.”

Guests: Anna MacIver-ek + Axel Chevroulet (Neuchâtel + Zurich + Lausanne, Switzerland)
Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

This week, we travel to Gothenburg and Stockholm, Sweden, to meet Johan Olsson and Andreas Lyckefors, co-founders of Olsson Lyckefors Arkitekter. Together since 2005, they lead a practice of around thirty architects and interior designers — and three dogs.

For them, each project is unique — “a unique period of time, a unique client, a unique place.” What carries through from one work to another is not a style, but a method: “of course we have things that continue from project to project, but that has more to do with methods than the outcome.”

They refuse the idea of a fixed aesthetic. “It would be unrespectful to keep an aesthetics over and above everything we do.”, they say. Architecture, for them, begins with listening: “listening is gold. Talking is silver.”

To embrace change, to adapt, to extract meaning from constraints, this is their way of working. “In the future we will do architecture in a way we don’t know yet. We cannot be stuck in preconceived ways of doing things.”

Guests: Johan Olsson + Andreas Lyckefors (Gothenburg + Stockholm, Sweden)
Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

This episode is sponsored by J&JTeixeira.

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This week, we travel to Aachen and Stuttgart to meet AMUNT, founded in 2009 by Björn Martenson, Sonja Nageland Jan Theissen.

AMUNT reinvent the existing. They pay attention to the quirky, the overlooked, the oddly specific. “There are ideas in these quirky things, that’s why we collect them.” But collecting is only the beginning. For AMUNT, these observations become operative: “to transfer means the possibility to bring something new to the vocabulary of architecture”. I agree.

Each project begins with context - not as something given, but as something constructed. “Everybody can create their own context… you design what you think is your context.” This openness also allows for letting go: “at some point, it becomes the client’s project on the inside, and we let go”. Wise.

Constraints play a central role. “We like to take benefits out of constraints… these constraints form a kind of character”. Within limits, they find freedom. “It helps you to find, in the sea of possibilities, a solution that is not just based on taste (…) If we have at least 2 reasons for something, then it’s really good”.

In the end, everything has a character: imperfect, specific, quietly alive…waiting to be found.

Guests: Björn Martenson + Sonja Nagel + Jan Theissen (Aachen + Stuttgart, Germany)
Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Today, we travel to Zurich to meet Emanuel Christ, who, together with Christoph Gantenbein, founded Christ & Gantenbein in 1998.

With them, I learned that “form is communication”. As Aristotle would say it as a syllogism: “Form is language. Language is communication. Therefore, form is communication.”

But can we truly communicate if we invent our own language? Or if we aim for anonymity in the forms we use?

For Emanuel Christ, a good building speaks, “a good building speaks with other buildings; a good building speaks about other buildings.” Architecture, he argues, is a civic art, “it belongs to everybody. So please speak a language that can be understood by the majority of people, and at the same time, make it surprising, make it fresh, make it original.”

“Form is never an isolated thing per se.” It is typological, compositional, tectonic - a synthesis of thought and construction. Each project contributes to the evolution of a type: “the best projects have a clear typological principle that produces exceptions and frictions.”

For Christ, architecture is dialogue between past and present, the general and the specific, the universal and the local. Always familiar, yet always new.

Guest: Emanuel Christ (Zurich, Switzerland)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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This week, let’s travel to Rotterdam, Paris and Zurich to meet André Kempe and Oliver Thill, two German architects who founded Atelier Kempe Thill in 2000.

Talking about simplicity can be a complex task — but today, we take on that challenge. For Kempe and Thill, architecture is “the creation of order in the world of chaos.” “The world is already too complex,” they say, “and a piece of architecture can create a moment of order.” Yet simplicity, for them, is not effortless — “it takes a lot of effort to do something that at the end looks rather simple.”

Typology stands at the core of their thinking — “in typology there is a lot of collective knowledge.” The plan, followed by the section, becomes a tool for clarity. Their architecture resists spectacle: facades are rigorous, interiors quiet, and repetition reveals rather than hides logic.

Ultimately, “there is an order — but one that can always be a little bit stretched.” Between reason and softness, their work searches for balance — between the ideal and the real.

Guests: André Kempe + Oliver Thill (Rotterdam, Paris, Zurich)
Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to Lugano, Switzerland, to meet Enrico Sassi — architect, landscaper, teacher of Urban Design at USI in Mendrisio, and editor of “archi”, a Swiss magazine of architecture and urban planning. From his studio in Lugano, he navigates the blurred lines between inside and outside, architecture and landscape.

“It’s not so important to make a distinction between inside and outside,” he says. What matters most is to “produce good living spaces.” For Sassi, “space is our specificity,” and materials are alive with possibilities: “each material has an expression… you can take out energy or beauty or interest from each material.” Nothing is ever wasted: “you don’t throw away a piece of stone. Keep. Keep because it is always useful.”

His work unfolds like an archaeological reading, where “you show stratas” and let the story be read over time. Theory is important, but it cannot remain abstract: “if we don’t have something in our head we are not able to do something with our hands. But only theory… it’s theory.” Construction itself is part of the story, and “you need to be ready to change your mind during the process because the story is moving and new things appear.” 

Maybe it’s an opportunity, it is not a problem.

Even bridges, pavilions, and infrastructures carry care and emotion: “color is adding joy to a piece,” he says, recalling a bridge touched by blue and yellow. “We don’t expect a bridge to transmit happiness.” But maybe we should.

Guest: Enrico Sassi (Lugano, Switzerland)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to Zurich to meet Maria Conen and Raoul Sigl, working together since 2011 under the name Conen Sigl Architekten. Their practice is rooted in curiosity, precision, and a constant questioning of how architecture belongs - to its place, to its people, and to its stories.

“How is this building grounded in the neighbourhood?” they ask. Every project begins with observation - reading the place carefully, understanding “what do I look at in this project?” and leaving space for multiple answers. “Maybe there is not one answer, maybe there are a lot of answers.”

Drawing plays a special role - not as documentation, but as reflection. “Drawing as a synthesis is more to keep in mind our thoughts for the project.” These synthesis drawings are not about technical detail, but about memory and pleasure - “the things you are most interested in.”

Architecture, they say, should be precise yet open, allowing life to unfold in unexpected ways. “Not always the best materialisation or the best concept of colours makes a good space. Sometimes it’s the people.” Beauty, after all, is “so multilayered” - it shifts, resonates, and tells a different story each time you look.

Guests: Maria Conen + Raoul Sigl (Zurich, Switzerland)
Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to Zurich to meet David Klemmer - an Austrian architect working in Switzerland, running his own office since 2017. In 2022, he founded Studio Diode, an independent satellite dedicated to digital images, where he acts as a digital photographer, constructing and staging virtual portraits of architecture. Two poles define his practice — one introverted, one extroverted — both essential.

David understands architecture as an instrument. “An instrument is something that cannot work on its own. It needs a human being.” And like instruments, his buildings are expressive, their structures “exposed, not hidden.”

From guitars to satellites, he finds resonance in objects that connect the intimate and the distant. “Musical instruments are the closest things to us… satellites are the most far away.” Yet both shape how we perceive and imagine space. “When I work in 3D, I feel an astronaut.”

For David Klemmer, reality is not absolute. “Plans, sections, or even conversations can reveal something I cannot experience when I go there.” Drawing, image-making, and design merge as acts of understanding.

Guest: David Klemmer (Austria + Zurich, Switzerland)
Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to Venice and Arzignano to meet Marcello Galiotto and Alessandra Rampasso, founding partners of AMAA, a “Collaborative Architecture Office For Research and Development” as they call it.

They have recently stated working form New York, as they thought that would be a good pretext to be closer to Donald Judd’s aura.

“Instagram fully fills our mind, so it’s not easy to select”. Therefore, they’ve developed their own toolbox, the "AMAA box” - which they progressively disclosure on throughout the episode. “To have a proper selection is important, so we do our selection of a lot of things”.

At the end, “all these influences create a language.”

There are 3 main pieces: a site, an architect and a client. 

“All these 3 things need to work together”.

“To be trustable with a client you need to be a storyteller, thats the first thing. But you also need to be humble and practical. (…) The client needs to be with us for the research, for the process, for the after”. The process is good, but the after is the best part, they claim.

Let’s not for get about the site, as that is the place where they best express their way of thinking. “We really love to dirty up the situation”.

On one hand, “we need to be thinkers but at the same time we need to be builders”.

On the other hand, “from a functional problem you can find a way to be also aesthetic”.

What goes around comes back around.

“The reference is giving to you the power of detail, the power of keeping up your way of thinking and your intuition.”

Guest: Marcello Galiotto + Alessandra Rampazzo  (Venice + Arzignano, Italy)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to Santiago, Chile, to meet Iván Bravo whom back in 2002 has founded Iván Bravo Arquitectos, now alongside his associate architect Martin Rojas.

Once upon a time Iván noticed he was really interested in the process of the work…even more than its outcome. Polemic.

Isn’t it curious that “in art, ”obra” is the final work” (obra de arte /masterpiece) meanwhile, “in architecture, “obra” is the process” (construction site).

“It was really interesting to understand that one final work, which we call “obra”, is all the process, including the end”, he says.

But can an “obra” (as a construction site) even become an “obra” (masterpiece)?

After all, their clients “are not clients that want architecture, they just want a house.”

Maybe this is all about getting “lebre por gato”.

In other words, “to get something better than you expect to”.

Maybe its about cousins who spot Toblerone’s in architecture projects.

“We are constantly mixing rationality with intuition, of course.”

“The publication of an architecture, the final photos, are a fetichism of the whole process.”

Guest: Iván Bravo (Santiago, Chile)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to Dublin, Ireland, where Ryan W Kennihan - originally from Chicago - has established his practice in 2007. 

Ryan is much more interested in an architecture of resonance then in one that is completely self-involved. “Whatever “non-referencial architecture” means, it is the complete opposite of this”. An architecture of resonance is a certain sense that arises from using forms that exist all over the world.

Their practice is about a constant meaning giving. “We want as many as possible, a proliferation of references”.

At a certain point we might find ourselves questioning if we are taking part in the evolution or just continuously extending a mistake. One cannot be sorry, “its very much about looking forward and looking back, trying to be old and be new; to be refined and be awkward.”

“What’s interesting to me is not the framework itself but actually the variations within the framework.

Guest: Ryan W Kennihan, Ryan W. Kennihan Architects (IE)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to London, United Kingdom, to meet Adam Khan, founder of Adam Khan Architects since 2006. 

Adam aims to take architecture where it doesn’t normally go. “We have a lot to toggle, as architects, without having to leave our discipline”.

But how can architecture extend elsewhere solely through architectural means? It's about doing it through the discipline of architecture, “not using architecture as a way to illustrate some other thing.”

But then… how do you incorporate the program, context, and situation without compromising its autonomy as a discipline? “There is much not under your control, you are kind of riding a runaway horse.” Architecture is such an imaginary guess, sometimes.

The most amazing thing is noticing that “someone actually bothered doing that.”

Guest: Adam Khan, Adam Khan Architects (UK)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to germany to meet the architectural practice Heide von Beckerath, today represented by Verena von Beckerath.  

Housing has been a never-ending topic in their practice. “When we started working with collective housing projects it was something new. (…) lately,I found out, collective housing is something that everyone is talking about”.

They are not claiming to be the pioneers of the attention now being given to the housing issue. However, they have long been aware that certain aspects have either never been applied to housing or have been forgotten in the discussion. Using their words:  “Its not something that we have invented, its something that is there but maybe has never been applied to housing in that way.”

Sometimes “a single word can change the acceptance of an architecture approach.”

Sometimes, its not very clear who has to water the plants.

Every time, “as architects, we always have to be a little ahead of things.”

“Housing…I mean…this is probably what we have to do in the next years.

But this does not mean that there is change in what we see that is built.

That is the next step.”

Guest: Verena von Beckerath + Tim Heide, Heide von Beckerath (DE)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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CREDITS

Two Houses

2019, 38 min

Director: Verena von Beckerath

Assistant directors: Niklas Fanelsa, Momoko Yasaka, Maximilian von Zepelin

Camera, Sound, Editing: Jens Franke

Produced by: Bauhaus-Universität Weimar

Verena von Beckerath (ed.), A Room with a View, Monroe Books, Berlin 2023

with contributions by Andrew Alberts, Ludovico Centis, Lawrence Hoque, Albrecht Kastein, Oda Pälmke and Yvonne Matijas Seguso

In this episode we travel to both Greece (EL) and London (UK), where we can Neiheiser Argyros, this time under the voice of Ryan Neiheiser.

Repetition and diference is a long-time interest of theirs.

They don't bother looking at things over and over again, “there is something about repetition that might lead to something unexpected”. However, in other to find the unexpected “you have to completely invest yourself in an idea and totally believe that it can exist in the world”.

“A big part of finding new ideas is about copying interesting ideas”.

Interesting, I might copy this idea myself.

Once we explore the idea of “reuse”, Ryan brings a new, and more precise, word to the table: spolia. “We have been trying to make use of the word “spolia” to nuance the idea of “reuse”.” And they will keep on doing it over and over again.

Guest: Ryan Neiheiser + Xristina Argyros, Neiheiser Argyros (EL + UK)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Next stop: Portugal, to meet Maria Rebelo and João Paupério, whom together in 2019, have founded Atelier Local.

Have you ever though about gosht writing applied to architecture? Maybe its more common than we think.

What is style?

Maybe, “style is what allows you to go further (…) if you repeat a same way of addressing an issue, your mind gets liberated to address other issues.

“Your own limitations travel with you wherever you go. Maybe that is what style is. (…) that’s the only way you know how to solve a problem.”

“Style is a limitation”.

Maybe.

“Once you start to reflect upon that, you start to use it more properly.”

For sure.

“We know a little bit about Palladio but we also know a little bit about ugly kitchens from our grandmothers.”

The real question here is: how local is Leroy Merlin?

Guest: Maria Rebelo + João Paupério , Atelier Local (Valongo, PT)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Next stop, Massachusetts (USA) were we met Willian O’Brien Jr, who has been developing his architectonic vision under the name WOJR since 2013.

They understand their work more as an intellectual project that has a kind of business by-product. “We think of architecture first and foremost as an act of cultural production”, they say.

“To rehearse” is probably one of their favourite activities. They rehearse ideas over and over, as they are “hoping to find an aspect of that project that helps [them] do something that [they] wouldn’t do otherwise”.

“What is unique about a thing becomes the lens which all decisions get made.”

Metaphorically speaking, something very similar to pealing an onion and finding a new layer every time. “We hope those ideas find their way into other projects.”

But is there space for “rehearsing” during construction? 

”I don’t think there is a 1-to-1 correspondence between the visualisation and the built work. One is aspirational and projective and other is, let’s say, much more opportunistic and discoverable.

“That’s something I have been thinking about a lot. What is the status of the visualisation once the work is built.”

Nevertheless, keep in mind that “it can be iterated, it can be rehearsed.”

Guest: William O’Brien Jr. , WOJR (Massachusetts, USA)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Next stop, Zurich (CH) alongside Piet Eckert, whom together with Wim Eckert founded E2A. 

Can a building ever be abstract? Can an idea ever be concrete? What about a model, how abstract can a model be? “The abstraction of a thought leads to an architectural strategy, we can produce a model that keeps this abstraction.”

With such a wide range of thoughts…how to keep our focus? Piet says he as “found  a way to deal with many conditions and not have the obligation to always think everything through.” He explains it further: “for example, a plan, is more abou how a space is organised; a model is about how a structure is creating synthesis; an image, for example, can accentuate our attention a space.”

It’s about method and about methodically taking the best out of it.

Nevertheless, for E2A, it’s important to emphasise that "the built work is always the synthesis, otherwise we have done something really wrong”.

“Its about definition and tolerance.

It’s about defining the world but making it free to be discovered.”

“I am not trying to limit things. I am trying to enable.”

“Liberty itself is not a quality.”

Guest: Piet Eckert, E2A (CH)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Today we travel to Ghent (Belgium) to meet with Jasper Stevens and Karel Verstraenten whom, together have founded FELT architecture & design, back in 2014.

FELT favors the 'in between', creating objects and projects that oscillate between between architecture and design, scale and scaleless, between function the fiction. They “see scenography as an architectural commission”, what about vice-versa?

Sometimes they re-scale buildings to stool-size, other times, they skate stools to building-size. “This exercise of re-scale is something we do with almost everything we make.”

They believe in the importance of not ending up “with a grey, basic architecture”. Are you a believer as well?

“We are liars. We like to lie. We lie to tell a different story”. As it should.

Sometimes it is about adding sprinkles on top of frozen yogurt. (Yes, you need to listen to the episode to understand this reference.)

“There is a reference for those who wan to see it."

Guest: Jasper Stevens + Karel Verstraeten (Ghent, BE)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Next stop, Zurich (CH) alongside Ron Edelaar, Elli Mosayebi, Christian Inderbitzin. You might better know them for the short-form EMI Architekten.

The conversation starts on a high, discussing the difference between “concept” and “narrative”. Were you aware that there was a difference between one and the other?

On one hand, “the concept, goes back to a very heroic era of architecture”.

On the other hand, “the narrative, allows for richness and multi-diversity (…)  it Its more about diversity, richness, heterogeneity, tentacular, contradictions”.

Therefore, “the narrative is also a critic towards the concept. But if you don’t know the concept anymore… it is difficult to recognise the narrative. (…) I think. In a way, it would be good to have a consciousness for both”.

“Do we cover the project with the story or do we develop the project in the story?”, they wonder.

“With our floor plans, we are trying to overcome preconceptions in housing.”

Successfully, I think.

We talk about mirrors that are moon eclipses.

We confess our obsession for doors. “Its all about doors.”

“Architecture is always very serious.”

“Architecture can be quite humorous.”, it is like a joke that can be told serval times, not a one-liner.

Guest: Ron Edelaar + Elli Mosayebi + Christian Inderbitzin (CH)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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For our 33rd stop, we’re going a bit all around the world with KOSMOS, an architecture practice whose tone is set  by Leonid Slonimskiy and Artem Kitaev.

KOSMOS don’t do architecture as one is supposed to do architecture. Yet, they claim they do nothing new…everything they do “already exists”.

Rather than abstract statements, they focus on the specific issues within surrounding conditions, aiming to create architecture that reflects and subtly shifts these realities.

For KOSMOS, less is more…in the sense that “the less we propose to do with our project, the happier we are with it.”

“To us, it is very important to see the project as something that is not possible now/today, but something that is possible in a year or two. It should be very real in these terms.”

Using their words, “Innovation [is] introduced by requirements, not by our subjective vision.”

To them “like life without humor,” architecture without life “doesn’t make sense”.

They are right, I guess.

Guest: Leonid Slonimskiy + Artem Kitaev  (www)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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In our 32nd episode, we travel to Hamburg (Germany) and Tokyo (Japan) to meet Kawahara Tatsuya and a Ellen Kristina Krause, the minds behind Kawahara Krause Architects.

Kawahara Krause Architects explores the subtle ways architecture can bring people together without rigid boundaries. “We are living together, and this togetherness should be architecturally staged.” “If things are separated from each other there is still a way to think about how they direct to each other.”

For Kawahara and Krause, each project is an invitation to endless “ways of reading.” Spaces should offer “stimuli without defining too strictly”. “We wanted to show people how enjoyable architecture can be”

"The more experience you have, the richer your intuition gets” and their rich intuition makes them wonder “what really needs to be defined”, after all?

Guest: Kawahara Tatsuya + Ellen Kristina Krause (Tokyo, Japan + Hamburg, Germany)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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On our 31st stop, we are travelling east, direction Brussels (BE)…or rather, to “ouest” to meet Stephan Damsin and Jans Harens, the duo behind “ouest architecture.”

ouest architecture thrives in the spaces left unfinished and unsolved, " there is a room for unsolved things and for a bit of ambiguity”. In their vision, not every problem has to be be fully solved. “We are interested in ways to repair stuff without hiding that it has been repaired,” they explain, a philosophy that calls for embracing the imperfections rather than smoothing them away.

Their approach invites a rethinking of architecture’s role in urban life.

How far can one question the brief? Can we question it so much that the kitchen ends up to be left out of the program?

“What are the opening hours, what is the price of the coffee? All these things are so important for how the building works in the city.” 

“How to make a building as a swiss knife?”, they ask. I do too.

What does adobe’s strategy on “progressive discloser” has to do with architecture? Maybe nothing.

“Color pencils and excel tables” are all you need to do architecture.

Guest: Stephan Damsin, Jan Harens  (Brussels, Belgium)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 30th stop is in Berlin (Germany), somewhere between a reconverted building and the next building to be reconverted. In fact, that is were we find B+. In fiction, we might also find them beyond the building, in station.plus. Olaf Grawert will take us through that.

To warm up, Olaf identifies 2 big groups of architects: both aim for “values” and “speculation” but their understanding of these terms is fundamentally opposite.

Should our honoraries be measured out of a percentage of construction costs? 

What if “there is more then just building as an answer”?

What if climate crisis are good news for the market? “In our current economic system, a natural disaster is a fantastic thing because the moment you have a natural disaster and things get destroyed, the market grows.”

Is there a correct answer? Are we just giving better wrong answers over and over? “We need to speculate. (…) “Everything that is new, unknown or experimental is not interesting to those who have to sell it”

Sometimes an observation can become a question, and then a movie, and then a publication, and the an exhibition and then a building, and then a law.

Or not.

If you are still thinking about the words “values” and “speculation”…you should listen to our conversation.

“Its pure fiction.”

Guest: Olaf Grawert, b+ (Berlin, Germany)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 29th stop is in Barcelona (Spain), Mexico City (Mexico) and Basel (Switzerland) alongside Pablo Garrido Arnaiz.

Parabase have a very keen eye for picking up things and putting them out of place. At least out of their initially proposed place...to be place in a new place though out by them. “Decontextualisation is something we can find: in almost all contemporary art piece, in most of he songs we listen to, in in writing but in architecture it is not that common.”

Decontextualisation adds layers of meaning to architecture.

Why can’t a sculpture be understood as a column?

Why can’t a roof rotate 90 degrees and play as a facade?

Maybe they can. “Architecture can be read in many ways, and it has a lot of meanings.”

Sometimes, decontextualised ideas come out of absolute casualty “or maybe there is a certain hidden reason of why we have made these decisions” and post-rationalised.

“The social economical system we live in…it is not circular, it is about generating and destroying, generating and destroying.” Meanwhile, they are designing a Housing project made out of, al least, 2 500 pieces dismantled out of a parking lot.

We observe the phenomenon of pavilions made under the aim of biennales/triennials/festivals. Is it the case that all these events are “creating a typology of architecture” as well as “creating a typology of architects”? We wonder.

Pablo says the following quote at the beginning of our conversation…but I feel like taking it of place and putting it as the final message of this episode’s brief:

“To do meaningful architecture and have fun (…) basically this is the ultimate motivation of our work.”

Guest: Pablo Garrido Arnaiz  (Barcelona, Spain + Zurich, Switzerland + Mexico City, Mexico)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 28th stop is in Mexico (Mexico), without forgetting Normandy (France) alongside Ludwig Godefroy.

What do pyramids from the pre-hispanic period and bunkers by the northern french sea have to do with each other? How can both of these come under the same architectural practice? “I have started to understand that pyramids and bunkers are kind of similar, to me.”

“Humanity has been doing pyramids for 4-5 thousand years and no pyramid is looking the same as the other one. If humanity was able to do pyramids for such a long time, I can spend the rest of my life doing pyramids…this is like an endless inspiration.”

“This is interesting to me because when you look at something you cannot even copy anymore, you have to reinterpret it. And then it becomes something very personal.”

We talk about modernist and about how NOT (only) modernism some modernist architects were. “Its is also about what part of those architects we are using. I am not using Le Corbusier in the same way that I am using Louis Kahn.”

Ludwig looks up to “the monumentality “out of Louis Kahn, “the detailing” out of Carlo Scarpa, and the “very strange magic” out of Le Corbusier “like he was inventing a new kind of space…beyond words”. 

He also looks up to the way of doing out of those who actually build architecture. “This is why my architecture looks a little bit rough. Because part of it is the accident.”

What des an Hotel in Puerto Escondido, a Water Reservoir in Istambul and Álvaro Siza’s Fundação Nadir Afonso have in common?

“In Mexico we don’t have rules, everything is possible. Which means the worst…but also the best.”

Guest: Ludwig Godefroy (Mexico, Mexico + Normandy, France )

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 27th stop is at Boltshauser Architekten (Munich, Germany) alongside Roger Boltshauser.

For Boltshauser, to have an order is a must have.

“I always look for order.”

But is order enough?

“If I have an order, I am happy but I am not happy enough, so I try to find ways out of this order.”

He even puts the words in the right order when he concludes: “Order maybe needs disorder”.

Maybe.

Maybe it’s not the case they are looking for a balance, but rather looking for a strong character “and strong characters are often not that balanced…but they are interesting”.

Every project is part of a bigger process. Which means that some issues from a particular project might find it’s answer in an project yet to come. Sometimes “we have already built the answer but we still can’t explain it in a racional way. The brain is not ready o understand but you still think it should be the way to go”.

The strange thing comes when you have to build it…you did something…and now you have to build it even tho you are aware that some questions remain unanswered.

“Sometimes the brain is not there yet”.

I think this is a nice way to put it.

Guest: Roger Boltshauser (Munich, Germany)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

Sponsor: Duo-Thermo

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Our 26th stop is at Enric Mirrales Benedetta Tagliabue - EMBT (Barcelona, SP) alongside Benedetta Tagliabue.

Sometimes, EMBT are attracted by something very simple. Therefore, they allow themselves to be a little bit like a child just to permite these ideas to emerge. “Maintaining the lightness of the first idea is a very very tough work”. And that is exactly what they work for “Projects, specially if they have a very long time or have many people involved, they have a tendency of getting diluted.”

“Enrique used to consider projects as alive beings, as a child. (…) So, in a way, projects need this attention as if they are people, they need to be looked after, they need to be helped in the difficult moments of their growing.”

Did you know that some projects are selfish, a good kind of selfish?

Did you know that some big roofs were supped to be even bigger then ended up being?

Did you know that some projects  are “nearly finished” and “have been nearly finished for 5 years”?

“You need a lot of strength to maintain things into its pureness and beauty.”

Guest: Benedetta Tagliabue - EMBT (Barcelona, Spain)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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On episode 25 we think architecture alongside SO-IL, in the voice of Summer Liu.

SO-IL are constantly pushing the boundaries...literally the physical boundaries...with them we learn boundaries are not just made by walls or windows. Just when you think they've reached the limit, their next project pushes it even further. They have the right amount of madness to pursue things outside of architecture until that one moment they surrender and become into architecture form. 

“Once you have an intuition, its about working with the real world knowledge and then learn from the people that will eventually make the thing.” When you do so, you can find a way to make metal mesh rings relevant for architecture, against all odds (for it’s weight, for it’s scale, for it’s production…). “It’s like Avatars, they just touch each other and then see what happens there. You have to find a bridge that equalizes the two pieces of information.”

“There is physicality to the abstract questions we ask.”…and it shows in every project.

Guest: Summer Liu - SO-IL  (New York, USA )

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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On episode 24th we’ll Learn from Denise, which means we’ll be learning from Las Vegas…and South Africa…and Italy…and England…and Philadelphia…and every single street and person she has passed by. “Do you know the word “serendipity”? It means something that happens unexpectedly and that could be a great thing.”

We talk about how the almost demolished “Fisher Fine Arts Library” has brought together the super duo of architecture: Venturi & Scott Brown. “I would say we’ve have a big influence but Le Corbusier had an even bigger influence”

Did you know there are 2 ways to think the city? Denise says the first is made by donkeys, the second is made by grids. After all, both are molded by "form, forces, and functions”. She even adds “in the end, the donkey is the functionalist.”.

Actually, there is much more to function than to have the bathroom next to the bedroom. “It’s wonderful to make something beautiful. And you hope you can make it both.”.

Oh Denise…what a mannerist <3.

“Sometimes I want to be as beautiful as princess Margaret. You take this pretty princess, you take her a photo (…) and she is wearing diamonds…only when you get near her you get that the diamonds are celofane paper.”

“Sometimes you have to break things.”

Oh Denise…what a mannerist <3.

I took notes of a little something:

“Remember your memories as a baby, they are valuable to you in your architecture. Don’t forget those, take them with you.”

I kept this advice in my pocket. I hope you do too. Learning from Denise.

Guest: Denise Scott Brown, Venturi+Scott Brown (Philadelphia, USA )

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

Sponsor: Vicaima

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Let’s travel to both Berlin (Germany) to meet the architect / drawer / collector of drawings / museum director Sergei Tchoban.

Sergei Tchoban has a sery simple trick to discover architecture, he asks one simple question: “Would I want to draw this project?”

In fact, he draws a lot and for a number of reasons, one of them being: to remember “to draw by hand is a way to later remember certain proportions when we are drawing our own projects”.

Unlike what we might think…it might be easier to draw historical buildings than contemporary ones. In the former, any mistaken line can be understood as a detail of the facade of that building. Meanwhile, in the later, in a contemporary building you either have the line right or wrong.

We talk about cats in Le Corbusier’s “Swiss Pavilion”.

We talk about toilets in Nicolas Ledoux’s “La Rotunde du Parc de Monceau”.

We also talk about possible connections with Piranesi’s dystopias - but with a positive intake instead - and the very curious framings of Pietro di Gonzaga. 

“It is a mise-en-scène, architecture is an important part of mise-en-scène”.

Guest: Sergei Tchoban (Berlin, Germany)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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#22 Harquitectes (SP), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

Our 22nd stop is in Sabadell, Spain alongside Harquitectes, in the voice of Josep Ricart Ulldemolins.

Harquitectes have the ability to design precise things with an abstract approach and abstract things with a very precise approach. I would risk to say that, for them, it is the same to draw a brick as it is to draw temperature. Every project is a new hypothesis on constructed conditions combined with natural phenomenon. “When all of these come together, it is more then just a basic survival experience, it is something closer to the extraordinary.”

In the beginning of the office, maybe, their approach to the vernacular was one of aesthetics. But they’ve gradually started to discover the hidden reasons behind the vernacular look.

“We don’t produce nothing new…maybe a new experiences, maybe a new typology but…”

But isn’t this producing something new?…I wonder.

“When you don’t plaster the brick, you get the memory of someone placing one brick over the other. That is why our buildings never have the feeling of something new, you have, at least, the time of the construction.”

Maybe vernacular is not a thing of the past, maybe we are the vernacular of tomorrow.

“I hope that we are producing some new vernacular.”

Guest: Josep Ricart Ulldemolins  -  Harquitectes (Sabadell, Spain)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

Sponsor: Duo-Thermo

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#21 TEN (CH+SRB), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

Our 21st stop is both somewhere in-between Zurich (Switzerland), Belgrade (Serbia) and an online group chat.

TEN is many things…and during our conversation we try to uncover even more of what TEN can become.

How can the idea of a boat give the name TEN to an architecture practice?

How would it be like to have an architecture practice like a record label? What about a football team?

Is doing "what interests us” a realistic thing to do?

In other words…how can we develop a project to resist for 500-years when no such client or brief will ever request us such a timeframe? “No-one is thinking about having building which is so resilient, and so much wanted, that it can last 500 years: it’s way over the generations’ lifespans, over the organisations’ timelines.”

“We should be the ones that are on the edge, projecting a vision and thinking more than just a service. This is where architecture can thrive.” 

We talk about structure, but not necessarily about that kind of structure buildings have.

We talk about an idea for a tower, images of a tower…but was this tower ever constructed?

“We are happy to contribute to the discourse in our profession. We don’t have to take it as a kind of “did we build it first? or last? Actually, we want to be taken over by others more often.”

“By making it public someone can pick it up and do it again and again and again.”

Guest: Nemanja Zimonjić, Scott Lloyd, Lukas Burkhart , Fabian Launer, Cyrill Wechsler, Tijana Mačkić ,  TEN (Zurich, CH + Belgrade, SRB)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 20th stop is in Mexico and/or New York (UK), alongside Edgar Rodriguez, with whom we develop on the idea of media, transmedia and intermedia. 

Let’s picture architecture as a system, not a perfect system but one that incorporated chance - it is always being fixed, improved, broken apart and put together. “Its all about focusing on the process and the different variations that could result from those processes.”

“Every project has its own system, with its own set of rules and then the final result is only one instance of that combination of elements (…) It is not a singular instance that is the right one, it’s wherever you decide were the process ends and you move on to the next stage of the project.”

Have you ever thought about building a fictional building for real?

What about building a fictional building?

What makes an idea relevant to architecture after all? Can a House without an interior be an architectural idea if no space is being defined?

Looking around, or onto social media, Edgar notices something I have never heard anyone say so directly “it’s almost like all the architects are the same architect and we are all producing the same type of work.” Are we all just producing many instances of the same project?

Guest: Edgar Rodriguez, operadora (Mexico, MX +  New York, USA)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

Sponsor: JJTeixeira

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#19 Tony Fretton (UK), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

Our 19h stop is in London (UK), alongside the architect Tony Fretton, with whom we learn how to look, notice and absorb things. “I look at things and I can get a lot from just looking at things.”

“Like a paintier is interested in the history of painting, I am interested I the story of architecture. I am interested in the way buildings have evolved and the way it does things.”

Fretton opens up about the UK's demanding architectural scene. And he might tell us 1 or 2 things no-one talks about in the architecture school: “One is: how to have people listen to you. The other is: how you get work? These are the two major aspects of being an architect.”

“There is a problem with architects, you know, a feeling that everything we do is very important and that everything has to be maintained in the way that we wanted it.” But he admits that the “use and misuse” of things interests him…it might be the needed shift of perspective.

“Paintings are in galleries, you can go and see it. Buildings are in the streets, you can go and see it. Buildings are unavoidably generous.”

To look at buildings, noice buildings and absorb buildings…is probably the best we can do.

Guest: Tony Fretton (London, UK)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

Sponsor: Meireles

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Our 18th stop is in Feldbrunnen (Switzerland) alongside Céline Bessire and Matthias Winter. If you ever feel like discussing difficult words like “parallax”, they are the perfect counterpoint. Things are not what they seem, “things carry an ambivalence within themselves” and Parallex is all about shifting perspectives, “what we are trying to find is the parallactic qualities within the everyday spaces (…) It’s not about changing or shifting meaning but changing what they actually are.”

The first sep is to understand the potential of the Parallex, secondly…you unleash its potential. Céline and Matthias have a bag full of ideas to argue on this topic. 

“We realised that we can change things also by not physically changing things.”

After all, “It raises the question of where a project end and where a project starts…if it actually does end or if it actually does start”. If we weren't already uncertain about everything, even the a priori data isn't sufficiently solid to remain unquestioned.

Question everything, be sure of nothing, a beautiful “strategy of how we can unlearn something that we are used to do.”

We might also welcome Georges Perec’s “Species of spaces” to this cloud of ideas. Was he actually putting things inside boxes? Or was he attempting to make us (paralleticly) think out of the box?

“It’s quite delirious to attempt to make categories, it can only be limiting.”

Guest: Céline Bessire + Matthias Winter (Feldbrunnen, Switzerland )

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

Sponsor: JJTeixeira

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#17 HANGHAR (SP), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

Our 17h stop is at HANGHAR (Madrid, Spain) to meet Eduardo Mediero, he shares with us the intriguing philosophy of a firm that thrives on the ticking clock of a ten-year deadline, all activity will be ceased on 31st December 2030.

Throughout our conversation, we dissect how HANGHAR is flipping the script on real estate norms by designing apartments free from the constraints of traditional room functions. “I am very interested in how very defined and very structured sets of rules or decisions opens up and frees it’s way of lIving.”. The superimposition of the grid might have a word on that…listen to find out the secret.

Ok…ok…I might reveal a little bit about that:

“Our work is always focused on a sort of architecture that could somehow fight agains te veracious speculation of our city. That’s when spacial grid apartments started to happen in which we were asked to renovated apartments but we didn’t know what the final owner is going to be. Creating an apartment that had no rooms no, bedrooms, no master bedrooms, no dining rooms but just this sort of spaces that the market was unable to define.”

Geometry as an abstraction tool…only for those who know how to use it.

Guest: Eduardo Mediero  (Madrid, Spain)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

Sponsor: JJTeixeira

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Our 16h stop is at aoa (Seoul, South Korea) to meet Jaewon Suh. To say “aoa” is the same as to say "architecture of anyone, anything and anywhere”. For aoa, architecture is nothing. “When I say that architecture is nothing, it means that it is a very fundamental thing”, like air, for example.  As a reaction to  Valerio Olgiaty ’s “non-referencial architecture”, a self-explanatory “hiper-referencial architecture”. “I want to be inspired by our reality not ideality”. Feel free to see a cat / a minecraft game / a Sol LeWitt’s sculpture, where there is a house. “To the children, my building looks like an ice cream. It’s a way to connect people and architecture.” “I think autonomy of architecture has to be destroyed by our culture” and as you listen to this conversation you’ll understand the meaning of these strong words. “Some banal things destroy order but I intentionally use these things as a satire of society.” In the end “the most important thing is how to organize the elements with each other to make a system. (…) Architects make a building using a column, a slab, a stair…very fundamental elements. We only do that.” Guest: Jaewon Suh, aoa  (Seoul, South Korea) Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal) Upload your references to: arquiteturaentrevistas.com Instagram @arquiteturaentrevistas Follow for more thoughts on architecture.

Today, we cross the globe. In this episode we talk with the architect Richard Stampton.

Whom consciously decided: not to go into competitions; not to extensively show his work (which is different from hiding it); as well as to resist the urge to think further then what he is actually drawing.

Did you know this also a possible approach?

“I was very conscious, when I started my practice, to be small in a meaningful way.”, he claims.

Do you know what it means to be “ramen profitable? I didn’t either.

Richard confesses his pursue for a deeper understanding on the haptics as well as the essencial counterpoint of letting go certain parts: “a building often gets to a scale where there needs to be a blanc wall”.

Do add up to the equation: “The building you do, if it it made out of cardboard or if it is made out of gold leaf, it should still work. The design should work almost regardless of the material.”

As simple and complex as that.

This is a triadic situation between: what the client wants, what the author thinks, what the world needs.

Truth being told, “the level of control an architect has is usually highly exaggerated…throughout history. Architects don’t make cities.”

“I love that there is a limitation over what we can control over a project.”

Guest: Richard Stampton (Phillip Island, AU)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 14th stop is at GAFPA (Ghent, BE) alongside Floris de Bruyn.

GAFPA is recognisable for it’s pragmatic approach. But there is much more to it. Somehow, they always manage to uncover the specificity that hides behind generic approaches. It’s about “trying to make something specific with a generic tool”.

For every project, a primary structure.

But what is this “primary structure”? “The primary structure, when you dismantle it, it is a very pragmatic structure, but at the same time it already includes both the identity and the generosity of the gesture.”

Everyday is complex enough, so “it’s important not to invent complexity”.

“You just do exactly what is needed and , somehow, nothing more then that.” but this is not the same as to say that “heritage” is the only possible path to follow.

“We like to compare different things in series, because we like the evolutions, the steps, the mutations, the discussions of how from one idea you step to the next. Because when you understand this logic, you can apply it yourself. When it is an isolated reference the danger is that it becomes model.”

Guest: Floris de Bruyn - GAFPA (Ghent, Belgic)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 13th stop is in Porto (PT), alongside Elói Gonçalves, and in Zurich (CH), where António Mesquita is currently at.

A fast and furious architecture, not just because…but because the fast pace has excelled the competition, fast pace is eminent anywhere. Things are always very fast, as so, the faster you adapt…the better you keep up. “Change and adaptability is part of our genetics”, they claim.

What we might expect from them is exactly what they expect from materials: António and Elói are amused by materials that have unlimited possibilities - “materials that are always ready”, as they call it - as so, unlimited possibilities is what they explore.

After all, “Architecture is like this...It is about being always ready”. “We don’t know what is going to happen in the the afternoon or the next day or in the construction site. So, being always ready is kind of the only possibility.”

Let’s picture, in our minds, the beginning of a project: the client has a plot and a program and maybe some ideias; the architects also have some ideias in their mind.

One thing is for sure: none of these is what the project is going to be.

“We have no idea of what we are going to do, but we are sure that we are going to find a lot of things.”

“Architecture is like chocolate for people that like chocolate, you could eat it forever.”

Guest: Elói Gonçalves + António Mesquita (Porto, Portugal + Zurich, Switzerland)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Today we travel the longest way so far, today I am really honoured to welcome architect Takefumi Aida, born in Japan in 1937and, for 86 years, has never stopped playing.

I bring good and bad news.

Bad news first: age won't bring us certainties.

Now the good news: age won't bring us certainties.

After over 60 years thinking about architecture, Takefumi Aida confesses he is “continuously thinking about what architecture is”. Maybe…this “thinking about what architecture is” is architecture itself.

It’s polemic…but the probability that "architecture is not 100% expressed in the realised architecture” is a strong possibility. Fortunately, its guaranteed we find Takefumi Aida’s full intent out of his models and drawings. 

“The importance of architecture is in the thinking. The building is one kind of result.”

He has approached architecture with a 3D kind of though, playing with Toy Blocks.

He has approached architecture with a 2D kind of though, playing with cards and parallel walls.

Currently, “I want to design architecture by a one dimensional thinking way. (…) I have started to think about that but I haven’t yet developed a design method for it.”

I bring more bad news: “There is not a single project that I am satisfied with.”

I also bring more good news: “I still have the same motivation I had when I was a young child. That is why I don’t stop.”

Beautiful.

Guest: Takefumi Aida (Tokyo, Japan)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 11th stop is at Lütjens Padmanabhan (Zurich, CH) alongside Oliver Lütjens and Thomas Pahmanbhan.

They experience the joy of building when they draw or build a model. To draw a line over a paper, to fold a paper into a model or to build out of folded metal sheets, is the exact same thing 

Oliver and Thomas are extremely faithful to their 1:50 models, in their office, there is a saying: “The model is always right”. So, if anything deviates, the question must be “why is our drawing not as good as the model?”. These models are tools NOT to overthink, we’ve come to realise.

Probably, their platonic love for thinness arose “out of laziness” (their words) from their first model in which "the skin of the building became thinner and thinner and that became into a theme that has stayed with us ever since”. To add up, insolation (and so on) doesn’t allow us to build in a monolithic way anymore “that is the new culture we need to embrace”.

Thinness is a language. “We think that if you use language, you should be serious about what you are saying. But it occurred to us that when you say serious things, you may as well say them with a light tone in your voice.”

“Architecture is self-conscious about it’s own fragility”. Name a more beautiful thing.

“If you are a painter or a musician and you fail, there is not much left. It is really risky. But we still have toilets and a dishwasher that works, and you can cook and sleep and it doesn’t rain in. So, we have a safety net. We can reach net level or we can go beyond it”. Or go beyond it, I repeat.

"You don’t pay us for the architecture, the architecture you get for free.”

Guest: Oliver Lütjens + Thomas Pahmanbhan -  Lütjens Padmanabhan (Zurich, Switzerland)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 10th stop is at Studio Muoto (Paris, FR) alongside Gilles Delalex.

Do you remember the last time you did something for the first time? “When you do something for the first time is when you have the most fun, so we are always hoping to touch new subjects.”

“The brief is a good start, but it is not the end.” So, even if the brief comes with a functional intent, it says very little about its outcome. So, a bathroom is not a bathroom, “you have a million ways of doing a bathroom”. And “a stair is not just a device to go from one floor to another, I hope.”

Structures last longer than it’s functional propose. So, structures must be rather “open for occupation”. “You can go to an empty stadium or go to a stadium during a football match and it is a really different space. And then you can play an opera and it will be different again. And the public will be different.” So yes, let’s use the word “occupation” instead of “function”.

“There is usually a moment where he project becomes so clear, so perfect, that it doesn’t call for anything else but itself. We want to keep them in a state where it’s slightly before the perfect symbol, before architecture closes on itself. (…) We are on an attitude trying to scape architecture, most of the time.”

Guest: Gilles Delalex - Studio Muoto (Paris, France)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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