ISBN
978-989-98808-5-6

Edition
CIAMH

Year
2019

Number of pages
134

Dimensions
14,5x22cm

— “Conversas com Arquitectos” no. 12 is out now!

No. 12 “Conversas com Arquitectos – Nuno Portas”

“Introduction

Nuno Portas, always double…

Fernando Távora introduced Nuno Portas to a class of young first year students who were attending the architecture course at the then Porto School of Fine Arts (ESBAP), where I was a member. Távora’s passion for Bruno Zevi’s book Knowing how to see Architecture was known. By defending an idea of organic architecture, it gave foundation, depth and motivation to Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture – which Távora clearly identified as the master of masters who inhabited and helped to build his own idea of architecture.

Nuno Portas wrote the preface to the Portuguese edition of Zevi’s book History of Modern Architecture published in 1970 and then, years later, at Távora’s invitation – who recognised its importance, intelligence and knowledge – he wrote the preface to his book Da Organização do Espaço (1962), which ESBAP’s architecture course republished in a fac-simile version in 1982.

In his classes, Távora read parts or paragraphs of his books and of many other authors, poets, painters, artists, architects, actors, urban planners and writers, commenting and explaining their relevance and, above all, the need for architecture students to develop a comprehensive theoretical discourse capable of grounding the practice of drawing and design; and insisting that the architect is “a creator of happiness”, that architecture does not make projects, it makes works, acting on the plane of reality and not only on the plane of abstraction”.

That’s why we heard Távora say: “There can’t be a solid practice without a solid theory. We are tired of practitioners and what is needed is people with a solid theoretical training. The idea that an architect should be above all a wonderful pencil is an outdated idea, for there is no wonderful pencil without wonderful heads”. And, in harmony, we understand Portas when he says: “that it is no longer acceptable to reduce the concept of architecture to a technique of taste, the embellishment of landscapes, […] but that it should have for the project, a praxis, an objectification with a view to construction, acting on a plan which is that of making, and which is the only one by which architecture exists and if it doesn’t alienate in idealism or abstraction”.”

ISBN
978-989-98073-5-8

Edition
CIAMH

Year
2019

Number of pages
120

Dimensions
14,5x22cm

— New book from the collection “Conversas com Arquitectos”

No. 11 “Conversas com Arquitectos – Rui Braz”

“INTRODUCTION

Rui Braz Afonso, challenging meanings…

It’s Manuel Castells who reminds us that: ” The space isn’t a reflection of society, it’s society. Therefore the space forms, at least on our planet, are produced, like all other objects, by human action. They express and realise the interests of the dominant class according to a given mode of production and a specific mode of development. They express and implement the power relations of the state in a historically defined society… Finally, from time to time, social movements arise to challenge the meaning of the spatial structure and thus try new functions, new forms”…

The intricate web of knowledge that Rui Braz confronts us with, whenever we debate something with him, no matter how circumstantial, is a characteristic that has remained – now perhaps more refined, for its existence and for the enlargement to other disciplinary areas that it has been carrying out.

The intersection of other visions, of other paths, of other approaches, is always present in his way of seeing and being in the world. The constant search to widen frontiers and to bring in other subjects, showing that there are other possibilities to see and to solve everything that is approached and that nothing has only one fixed or stable point of view, seems to be one of the fundamental characteristics of Professor Rui Braz’s thinking and way of being.

To speak of a subject will always be, in his vision of the world, to speak of multiplicity, of divergence, of incoherence, of countless authors, of other characters, of cinema, of arts, of urbanism, of planning and of teachers, illustrious or anonymous men, but above all of life and of innovation, of desire too… Basically, there is in his discourse the permanent challenge of the will to mix and to create another and new vision – which is not a simple result of the assumptions with which the debate began…”.

— BIM IS MORE / Magazine

BIM IS MORE is a periodic publication that disseminates new ways of designing and building Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) through the use and integration of new digital information and communication technologies. It is especially oriented towards the methodological aspects of the theme of Innovation applied to this sector that integrates the aspects of the art of creating, building and inhabiting spaces in contemporaneity.

The idea of creating a publication on this innovative but essential subject for the future of the sector, making known the results and the application of new ways of designing, building and living, is also the objective of the Research Group of the Centre for Innovation in Architecture and Ways of Living (CIAMH) of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP), collaborator of this issue, which has been, since its formation, studying and disseminating information and knowledge on new practices of design, design and construction applied to architecture.

The aim of the journal is to remain open to different and unusual areas of knowledge, not fixing itself in any particular one, despite having in its base the architectural culture as a matrix for its deepening. To that extent, the publication will address some of the most relevant research work and pursue the development of new ways of approaching Architecture, Engineering and Construction, exploring new processes, new work methodologies and therefore new results, both in the field of ideas and achievements.

Each publication will integrate a different theme, presenting a theoretical body with texts by invited authors, projects and works built, interviews and, sometimes, an in-depth case study on the application of the theme in a given company or institution.

ISBN
978-989-98808-8-7

Edition
CIAMH

Year
2018

Number of pages
176

Dimensions
16,5x23cm

— New book arrival on the new aways to build and project

New issues in construction education

This book presents the report, programme, contents and methods of theoretical and practical teaching of Construction Curriculum Unit 2 of the Integrated Master Course in Architecture, presented for access to the academic title of aggregate in the field of knowledge of Architecture by the University of Porto. It’s not a full version, as all the collection, research and comparison works sent to annex are absent and this publication does not include by merely editorial criteria, as well as it takes the detailed summary of the lesson and the other documents required for the exam, focusing only on the items addressed to the teaching/learning issues of a Curriculum Unit in the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto.

The research that is published in this text, rather than trying to achieve an exclusive vision about the construction of a Curriculum Unit in a duly consolidated Integrated Master of Architecture as is the FAUP, intends to explore some scientific issues on the subject, address other pedagogical perspectives and discuss the complex relationships between practice and teaching of Architecture. In a world in permanent and rapid mutation, where the problems of Construction, Project and its Teaching/Learning are more and more interdisciplinary, the demand for new and competitive abilities to the new architect to understand, act and build in the complex world where we live is evident.