PB 08 THE CITY AS A STAGE: HOUSING AND THE STORIES WE BUILD
HOUSING, INFRASTRUCTURE AND TRANSPORTATION VOLUME I
THE CITY AS A STAGE: HOUSING AND THE STORIES WE BUILD
Veruska Vasconez
THE CITY AS A STAGE: HOUSING AND THE STORIES WE BUILD
Veruska Vasconez
Veruska Vasconez
HOUSING AS INFRASTRUCTURE
Álvaro Arancibia
THE SPOILED VALLEY
Gabriella Gama & Filipe Lourenço
AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND CIVIC GRANDEUR
Alexander Gorlin A SYSTEMIC FRAMEWORK FOR TERRITORIAL ARCHITECTURE
spaceworkers®
PREFABRICATION AS METHOD
Samuel Gonçalves
WHEN CHEAP IS EXPENSIVE
Thiago SoveraL, Cauê Capillé, Ariane Pereira & Lucas Marques
FINDING IN 3D PRINTING FOR CONSTRUCTION NEW ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN TECTONIC
João Teixeira, Tássia Latarroca, Elis Ribeiro, Manuel Jesus and Bárbara Rangel
AUTHORS BIOGRAPHY
Veruska Vasconez
PROLOGUE
Veruska
Vasconez
The act of creating a city, at once a cultural artifact and a technological pursuit, remains inseparable from the quotidian experience of life. Each morning, we awaken within a choreography of light, space, and atmosphere that quietly scripts our routines: from the apertures of our dwellings to the passing breezes that carry the pulse of the street, and the thresholds that guide us into the shared realm of public space. To borrow from Walter Benjamin, the built environment serves as the stage upon which collective life unfolds, shaping our perception of time, community, and history. The city endures as a guiding presence, both backdrop and protagonist, capable of evoking frustration, yet continually enveloping us in boundless, often unseen, but profoundly transformative inspiration.
This volume gathers seventeen voices, architects, historians, and practitioners, who illuminate how housing, infrastructure, and design act as mediators for the most urgent challenges of our time. These essays are not isolated reflections but rather interwoven inquiries into architecture’s capacity as a form of social imagination, a vehicle for justice, and a medium for re-envisioning urban futures. Emerging from the graduate seminar Housing, Infrastructure, and Transportation at the University of Miami, originally developed by my mentor, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, this compilation stands as both a pedagogical experiment and a scholarly contribution. Over the course of the Fall 2023 semester, colleagues and friends shared their projects and critical perspectives with students, generating dialogues that demanded to expand beyond the classroom into this publication. With the generous support of Ana Leal and her team, these conversations have been refined and crystallized into the first volume of a trilogy dedicated to reframing the global discourse on housing and infrastructure.
HOUSING AS INFRASTRUCTURE: ÁLVARO ARANCIBIA
Álvaro Arancibia offers a profound reconsideration of housing not as an isolated object but as a form of urban infrastructure. Drawing on Latin American traditions such as the cité in Santiago de Chile, he argues that repetition in housing, often dismissed as monotonous, can instead become a generative strategy for structuring territory, organizing movement, and producing collective life. His essay demonstrates, through three projective experiments, how typological reinterpretation can transform the street, the courtyard, and even the high-rise into devices that project urban form. Echoing Aldo Rossi’s idea of architecture as “urban artifact,” Arancibia’s text challenges us to imagine housing as a spatial logic with infrastructural consequences. In a moment when housing shortages collide with climate and policy crises, his call for syntactic openness rather than typological fixation resonates as both a theoretical and practical agenda.
THE SPOILED VALLEY: GABRIELLA GAMA & FILIPE LOURENÇO
In their manifesto, The Spoiled Valley, Gabriella Gama and Filipe Lourenço explore the enduring stigmatization of Lisbon’s Alcântara Valley, reframing it through Erving Goffman’s theory of “spoiled identity.” Their narrative traces the valley’s layered transformations, from agricultural land to industrial corridor, from Salazar-era infrastructural axis to the site of controversial rehousing programs following the dismantling of Casal Ventoso. At the center stands the Urbiceuta tower, a brutalist relic repurposed as the Portuguese Red Cross School of Health. For Gama and Lourenço, this building symbolizes both abandonment and potential: a vertical school that resists conventional typologies yet holds the promise of catalyzing renewal through higher education. Their essay resonates with broader debates on urban stigma (Wacquant, 2007) and on the capacity of architecture to transform marginalization into opportunity. By proposing that the school expand beyond its podium into the neighborhood, they imagine an “open campus” model that integrates academic, social, and economic life, reframing the valley not as a spoiled territory but as a site of reconfigured urban identity.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND CIVIC GRANDEUR: ALEXANDER GORLIN
Alexander Gorlin brings the perspective of a practitioner whose projects in New York reinterpret modernism’s social mission for contemporary affordable and supportive housing. Drawing inspiration from Bruno Taut’s colorful Berlin estates, Michel de Klerk’s sculptural
Amsterdam blocks, and Vienna’s monumental Karl Marx-Hof, Gorlin insists that dignity and beauty must not be reserved for elites. His Nehemiah Housing in Brooklyn reimagines the townhouse with stoops and varied façades, embedding Jane Jacobs’ notion of “eyes on the street.” In the Bronx, his El Borinquen Residence celebrates Latinx culture through color, art, and community space, translating the work of Paul Klee and Joan Miró into architectural form. Gorlin’s essay recalls Le Corbusier’s dictum that “a house is a palace” when designed with proportion and care. His practice demonstrates how affordable housing can act as civic infrastructure, spaces of safety, identity, and belonging, thereby resisting the reduction of housing to a mere commodity.
EXPERIMENTATION AND SENSATION: SPACEWORKERS®
The Portuguese atelier spaceworkers®, led by Henrique Marques and Rui Dinis, represents a new generation of practices that combine rigorous formal exploration with sensorial engagement. Their work challenges contemporary architectural paradigms, emphasizing the relationship between form, context, and emotion. From the award-winning Sambade House to the Cabo de Vila House and the Interpretation Centre of the Romanesque Route, their projects embody what Juhani Pallasmaa describes as the “haptic dimension” of architecture, the appeal to memory, touch, and atmosphere. Their growing recognition, with awards from ArchDaily, Architizer, and the German Design Council, situates them within a global discourse; yet, their work remains deeply rooted in Portuguese landscapes and traditions. The atelier’s trajectory reminds us that housing and infrastructure are not only technical or social challenges but also cultural and experiential ones, shaping how bodies inhabit and perceive space.
PREFABRICATION AS METHOD: SAMUEL GONÇALVES
In Método, Modo e Forma, Samuel Gonçalves advances a vision of architecture grounded in industrialized construction and prefabrication. Against the backdrop of demographic pressures and labor shortages, he argues that mechanized processes are not merely efficient but necessary to sustain housing production. His reflections invert the traditional design sequence: instead of conceiving a building and then adapting it to construction, he begins with modules, logistics, and transportation constraints, letting the process generate form. Citing precedents such as the AIROH houses of postwar Britain and James Stirling’s modular student housing in St Andrews, Gonçalves situates his practice within a lineage of architectural responses to crisis. His projects, ranging from modular concrete dwellings to prefabricated childcare facilities,
demonstrate how industrial pragmatism can serve as a platform for innovation. Echoing Nuno Portas’ notion of industrialized building, Gonçalves reframes prefabrication not as reduction but as opportunity: a way to create adaptable, efficient, and dignified architecture for a rapidly urbanizing world.
WHEN CHEAP IS EXPENSIVE: THIAGO SOVERAL, CAUÊ CAPILLÉ, ARIANE PEREIRA & LUCAS MARQUES
Thiago T. Abranches de Soveral and Cauê Capillé address the paradox of Brazil’s affordable housing crisis, where mass-produced units often fail to support long-term residency, resulting in abandonment and inefficiency. Drawing on their +Lapena Habitar project, they identify six critical dimensions: resilience over time, integration of living and working, sustainability, incremental expansion, governance of shared spaces, and the hidden costs of furnishing. Their analysis echoes John Turner’s advocacy for housing as a process rather than a product, highlighting the importance of flexibility, adaptability, and resident agency. Yet they also insist on the architectural and infrastructural dimensions of these challenges: from the design of multifunctional rooms to the provision of built-in furniture. By framing “cheap” housing as ultimately expensive when it fails its residents, their essay underscores the need for design intelligence and policy reform to ensure that affordability translates into dignity and permanence.
MATERIAL FUTURES:
JOÃO TEIXEIRA, TÁSSIA LATARROCA, ELIS RIBEIRO, MANUEL JESUS AND BÁRBARA RANGEL
Although not presented during the seminar itself, this team’s research on 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) introduces a crucial technological and material dimension to this collection. Their investigation reframes construction as a digitally integrated act of design, where form, structure, and fabrication converge through additive manufacturing. Drawing from the lineage of industrialized processes discussed by Gonçalves, their work explores how 3DCP enables mass customization, new tectonic languages, and material efficiency, merging sustainability with expressive potential. The DIGI@FEUP research group’s experiments with waste-based composites, recycled aggregates, and geopolymeric mixes expand the palette of architectural textures and colors, redefining the aesthetic and environmental horizons of concrete. Through this lens, 3D printing becomes more than a technique, it is a cultural and tectonic project that transforms the relationship between architecture and material. The essay argues that innovation in matter and method is inseparable from ethics and design, positioning 3DCP
as a critical tool for reimagining the sustainable futures of housing and the built environment.
TOWARD HOUSING: AS A COLLECTIVE PROJECT
Taken together, these essays propose a vision of housing as far more than shelter, as infrastructure, ideology, memory, community, experimentation, process, and material imagination. They remind us that architecture, when shaped with empathy and intellect, does not simply build walls and roofs; it constructs ways of living together. Guided by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk’s humanist pedagogy, this book invites readers, students, and practitioners to perceive housing and infrastructure as acts of care, as architectures of connection, where the social and the spatial weave into one another to create the fabric of collective life. In an age when the global scarcity of housing meets the turbulence of the climate crisis, economic precarity, and technological acceleration, these voices offer not certainties, but luminous beginnings. They teach us that architecture’s truest measure lies not in its scale or permanence, but in its ability to kindle belonging, to restore dignity, and to hold the fragile continuity between the individual and the world. As Juhani Pallasmaa wrote, “Architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world.” It is this reconciliation, between earth and sky, matter and spirit, necessity and imagination, that these pages pursue. Through repetition and invention, memory and light, community and craft, housing emerges here as both the most elemental and the most profound expression of our shared humanity.
HOUSING AS INFRASTRUCTURE: REFLECTIONS FROM THE CITÉ MODEL IN SANTIAGO DE CHILE
Alvaro Arancibia
INTRODUCTION
This chapter offers a disciplinary and project-based reflection on the role social housing can play in urban design, particularly when its repetition becomes a tool for organizing territory. Traditionally treated as separate domains, "housing" and "infrastructure" have been addressed through distinct functional logics: the former as a response to housing shortages, the latter as a technical support system for urban operations. This text posits that housing, when conceived through organizational and repetitive logics, can function as urban infrastructure, endowing shared space with order, meaning, and hierarchy.
Building on this hypothesis, the chapter revisits the cité typology in Santiago de Chile, as a conceptual and morphological reference that enables the articulation of housing as infrastructure. The goal is not to replicate the typology literally, but rather to revalue its organizational and social qualities as projective tools. Three architectural projects by the author, each influenced by the cité in distinct ways, are analyzed to demonstrate how housing can, in fact, produce urbanity.
1. HOUSING AS URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE
In architecture and urbanism, infrastructure is commonly defined as a technical system—transport, energy, sanitation—that ensures the city’s functioning. Housing, in contrast, is often viewed as a functional unit serving basic familial needs. This division has led to the treatment of housing as an autonomous object, disconnected from the broader urban system in which it operates.
Rather than isolating residential life above the city, this strategy reinserts vertical housing into the urban fabric. The base acts as a civic platform, while the towers above remain grounded through their connection to shared infrastructural space.
CONCLUSION
The repetition of housing is not synonymous with monotony, but rather an opportunity to build city. When guided by clear projective logics—whether through the street, the patio, or the volumetric articulation—social housing can acquire infrastructural qualities, organizing space and enabling communal life. The cité offers a historical foundation for these operations, not as a prescriptive model, but as a conceptual resource.
Against totalizing solutions that fix the form of social housing, this text calls for an open, syntactic approach in which housing is understood as part of a broader system—as infrastructure for urban life. This reframing demands a paradigm shift in both design and policy: addressing the quantitative urgency of housing shortages is insufficient. We must design the institutional, normative, and spatial frameworks that enable housing, through its repetition, to generate the city.
Ultimately, housing must be reclaimed not as a final product, but as a generative structure—an armature for life, relation, and place-making. Only then can it fulfill its infrastructural promise.
Cité Housing: Cité Adriana Cousiño (1920), an example of traditional housing architecture in Santiago de Chile during the 1920s and 1930s.
High-Rise Housing Project: A socially integrated highdensity housing scheme of two towers framed by a fourstory block, which shapes a communal open space intended to evoke the intimacy of the cité typology. Project by Alvaro Arancibia and Mobil Arquitectos (2025). Photography by Cristóbal Palma.
IMAGE 04
THE SPOILED VALLEY: A MANIFESTO FOR THE ALCÂNTARA VALLEY AND ITS STIGMATIZED IDENTITY.
Gabriella Gama & Filipe Lourenço
The Greeks, who were apparently strong on visuals aids, originated the term stigma to refer to bodily signs designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of the signifier. The signs were cut or burnt into the body and advertised that the bearer was a slave, a criminal, or a traitor - a blemished person, ritually polluted, to be avoided, especially in public places[01]
In a controversial attempt to address drug-related issues at the turn of the century, Lisbon’s authorities implemented a radical solution: the complete relocation of Casal Ventoso neighborhood residents to a new development along the Avenida de Ceuta (Ceuta Avenue) in the Vale de Alcântara (Alcântara Valley). This decision, though seeming like a definitive solution at the time, has proven ineffective since, a quartercentury later, the valley continues to grapple with persistent drug abuse, highlighting a critical gap in urban policy and social services. Despite all of the efforts by the city council to reduce the impact of this issue by having used syringes collected during the day and giving assisted rooms for “clean” consumption of drugs, the problem persists.
Portugal withstood a severe economic crisis in 2008, and the few amenities and services present in the neighborhoods along Ceuta Avenue were slowly disappearing, since the inhabitants were not enough to generate the area’s economy. Hence the bleak and abandoned streets of the Alcântara Valley. Today, the avenue has virtually no commercial activity for residents, and almost all ground-floor units stand empty. The deserted streets have become a haven for marginalized activities, primarily drug trafficking, which severely impacts residents’ quality of life. In the middle of the neighborhood stands the Portuguese Red Cross School of Health, as an isolated tower within this social housing complex, an institution positioned at the intersection of public health education
Alcântara Valley Urban Typologies: Integration and Isolation: This diagram illustrates the urban composition of Lisbon's Alcântara Valley, highlighting the distinctive architectural and social landscape. At the center stands the Portuguese Red Cross School of Health, characterized by its unique podium tower typology that rises prominently from the surrounding urban fabric. On the other hand the social
housing developments are predominantly mid-rise linear blocks arranged in semi-enclosed formations.Infrastructure elements, including the major transportation arteries of the Ceuta Avenue and adjacent railway lines, demonstrate both the site's connectivity to the broader city and the physical barriers that contribute to the valley's sense of isolation.
IMAGE 06
AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND CIVIC GRANDEUR
Alexander Gorlin
Our work in affordable housing is inspired by the mission of the early modernist movement in architecture to improve society through design. Architecture was seen as an instrument of social change especially through the design of housing that would improve upon the historically bleak accommodations of workers throughout the 19th century. Especially after WWI, there was an enormous demand for housing that was finally realized by European socialist governments who hired architects of the new style that prized above all light and air for each room, as well as a communal sensibility in the formal planning of each housing development.
Architects such as Bruno Taut in Berlin created monumental housing blocks such as the Horseshoe Housing, true to its name in the shape of an enormous curving courtyard with a park at its heart. Michel de Klerk in Amsterdam designed “The Ship” alongside a commuter railroad line in a highly sculptural brick courtyard that residents prided for its amenities and unique architectural details recalling Dutch rural villages, that many had emigrated from. In Vienna the great wall of the Karl Marx-Hof elevated workers housing to a level of a civic monument, glorifying the laborer in a manner equal to the scale of the palaces of the Hapsburg royalty.
In fact, le Corbusier’s book, “Un Maison, Une Palais”, “A House, A Palace”; was a direct inspiration, where he compared a modest house for his mother on Lake Geneva to his competition entry for Palace of the League of Nations. The implication was that through the careful proportion and architectural design, even a small house could imply the grandeur and breadth of living in a large palace.
homeless individuals with mental health needs. The remaining fifty-seven units are affordable apartments set aside for low-income seniors and community residents.
Located on Third Avenue and East 166th Street, El Borinquen is the fourth supportive project Alexander Gorlin Architects has completed in The Bronx’s Morrisania neighborhood. Other award-winning supportive housing projects include “The Jennings” at 903 Jennings Street, “The Brook” on Brook Avenue and East 148th Street, and 1191 Boston Road.
Crane lifts modular unit into place.
Studio apartment with window facing historic Armory
A SYSTEMIC FRAMEWORK FOR TERRITORIAL ARCHITECTURE
Spaceworkers®
From the beginning, housing has accompanied the history of humankind. More than a functional need for shelter, housing is a reflection of the society in which it exists. It reveals customs, family structures, relationships with the environment and with the community. It is precisely in this understanding of housing as a cultural, social and territorial expression that one of the fundamental concerns of our work resides.
Today, more than ever, housing has returned to the centre of the urban debate. On one hand, because it is insufficient. On the other, because even when it does exist, it is not always integrated into a system that enables community life, access to essential resources and necessary mobility. Housing alone cannot solve the problems of our cities. Its effectiveness depends on the existence of infrastructure capable of sustaining life and a transport system that connects it to the rest of the urban fabric.
Over the years, at spaceworkers, we have developed projects mostly in rural or peripheral contexts. Working outside major urban centres has allowed us a freer and more direct reading of the relationship between inhabited space, environment and movement. In these territories, the three themes that structure this reflection — housing, infrastructure and transport — are often disjointed, forcing us to rethink the very act of designing.
These territories, though less dense and less served by standard transport networks — and where infrastructure is still minimal in many cases — carry enormous potential. They represent a reserve of space, quality of life and unexplored possibilities. They are territories where dwelling can still assume a symbolic, relational and intimate dimension
to its time and place resides. It is in the intervention in rural or peripheral territories that we believe a solution may lie for the growing problem of urban saturation. What at first glance may seem like a territorial disadvantage, may in fact prove to be an opportunity to contribute to an alternative solution — to a new urban paradigm. At least, that is what we believe.
Hans Isler Housing Complex
Hans Isler Housing Complex
PREFABRICATION AS METHOD
Samnuel
Gonçalves
Through a lecture and several critique sessions, I had the opportunity to present and discuss with the students at the University of Miami School of Architecture a significant part of the work we have been developing in the studio.
In engaging with the students, I noticed — somewhat to my surprise — that their interests focused more on the motivations and contexts behind each project rather than on the project itself as a finished product. For that reason, I dedicate the following pages to the description of five observed realities — not necessarily related to one another — that emerged at different moments in the conversations I had with them, and which have progressively influenced my design practice.
(DEMOGRAPHY)
Over the past fifty years, the world’s population has almost doubled — in other words, in half a century, it has grown as much as it had throughout the entire previous history of humanity. This fact, along with other factors such as the increasing mobility of people driven by globalization and climate change, imposes new challenges on how we build to accommodate this exponentially growing population. According to the United Nations, we will need to build two billion homes over the next 50 years. At the same time, the construction sector is experiencing a growing labour shortage across various regions. In 2020, the Associated General Contractors of America identified labour scarcity as the main challenge that more than 70% of companies would face in the following year. In Portugal, on our scale, we experience the same difficulty. In 2018, the “1º Direito” program was created with the goal — which is far from being achieved — of providing 26.000 homes to families living in
mechanical connections, making them potentially demountable. This approach imposes additional challenges, notably related to the lower resistance of these connections to seismic events and the frequent reluctance of engineering teams to accept such solutions.
In this text and in the conversations with the students, I sought to describe — drawing on specific examples — the three essential moments that define our work. A method of design based on a fundamentally dual observation, one that looks simultaneously to history and to industry. A mode of production, grounded in different approaches that fit within the broad spectrum of prefabrication, through adaptation, the reinterpretation of existing solutions, and, occasionally, incremental innovation (never in the expectation of total innovation). Finally, the form — or the outcome — which is always explicitly inspired or shaped by the two preceding moments. Between the complexity and unpredictability inherent to our profession, it is the constant visualization of the triad of method, mode, and form that offers us guidance and measure.
[01] Portas, Nuno. “Industrialização da Construção –Política Habitacional”, Lisboa: Análise social - revista do Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, Vol. 2, Lisboa. 1964
[02] “Gropius at Twenty-six”, in Architectural Review, July 1961 - A complete summary, in English, of the memorandum presented by Walter Gropius to Emil Rathenau on industrialized building, in 1910.
[03] Aravena, Alejandro. “The Work of Samuel Gonçalves in Portugal”, 15th International Architecture Exhibition – Reporting From the Front History – La Biennale di Venezia 1 st edition, Marsilio Editori, Venice. 2016.
[04] Finnimore, Brian. “The A.I.R.O.H. house: industrial diversification and state building policy”, Construction History, Vol.1, Berkshire. 1985.
[05] As defined by Richard Scherr, in “Architecture as Index: Toward a Theory of Contingency”, Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 44, nº 3. 1991.
[06] Oberle, Bruno et al. “Global Resources Outlook: 2019”, International Resource Panel, United Nations, Paris. 2019
[07] Daly, Patrick. “A critical review of circularity - ‘design for disassembly’ assessment methods applied in the development of modular construction panels - an Irish case study”, e-Prime - Advances in Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Energy – Volume 5, 2023.
[08] Merlino, Kathryn Rogers. “Building Reuse. Sustainability, Preservation, and the Value of Design”, University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA. 2018
[09] Graaf, Reinier. “Four Walls and a Roof”, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2019
WHEN CHEAP IS EXPENSIVE: SIX CRITICAL POINTS FOR ADVANCING AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN BRAZIL
Thiago Soveral, Cauê Capillé, Ariane Pereira & Lucas Marques
According to the Brazilian National Housing Policy, established by the Ministry of Cities in 2004, families in socially vulnerable situations represented 92% of Brazil’s housing deficit at the turn of the century (Brasil, 2004). Two decades later, this figure has decreased to 75% of the current deficit of six million homes (Campos, 2024). This means that 4.5 million housing units are still needed to meet the demand for affordable housing among the most vulnerable populations in Brazil.
While housing programs have scaled up in recent decades, with the ideia of offering permanence and well-being in affordable housing, many projects have failed to support the long-term integration of residents into the spaces provided. A key indicator of this inadequacy is the high abandonment rate of housing units: studies show that up to two-thirds of beneficiary families end up leaving the properties and returning to precarious housing conditions — or even to living on the streets (Velloso, 2019).
This process of abandonment stems from a complex combination of social, economic, and institutional factors. However, the physical space of the home — as a material infrastructure of everyday life — also plays a decisive role. In this context, one must ask: What changes in the architectural design could contribute to increasing the length of stay of these families in social housing units?
Drawing from our recent experience with the +Lapena Habitar[01] project in São Paulo, developed by Tide Setubal Foundation [02], this essay identifies six critical areas that are fundamental today in Brazil, when considering affordable housing as a sustainable, empowering infrastructure. These are: resilience over time; integration of living and working; economic and environmental sustainability; incremental expansion; shared space governance; and the cost of furnishing.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
This work draws on our ongoing research in collaboration with the Tide Setubal Foundation, the Citi Foundation, and the Graduate Program in Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, to whom we are grateful for their support. We also thank researchers Ariane Pereira, Maria Rúbia Grillo Pereira, and Lucas Marques de Assis for their valuable contributions to the literature review. Special thanks to Carmen Silva for the insightful interviews, which helped clarify and deepen our reflections.
[01] About the +Lapena Habitar project, see Soveral (2023).
[02] The Tide Setubal Foundation is a non-governmental organisation founded in 2006. The focus of its work is on the urban outskirts, and the São Miguel Paulista neighbourhood was the starting point for its work. That is why the region in the east of São Paulo was where Tide Setubal carried out social actions in the 1970s, inspiring the creation of the organisation. More on: https://fundacaotidesetubal.org.br/tide-setubalfoundation/
[03] A recent example of this strategy is seen in the extensive work by architect Sophie Delhay, for example in the Unité(s) Experimental Housing project (2018) that
explores new hierarchies and sequences of the units’ rooms.
[04] A well known example of this strategy is the CECAP (1972) project by architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha in Guarulhos, São Paulo, with a concrete external structure, with internal plasterboard walls, allowing internal reorganisations.
[05] A radical example of this strategy is the project Terrassenhaus Berlin (2018) by architect Arno Brandlhuber, where units follow a logic of indeterminacy in which only the technical connections and sanitary facilities are built.
average temperatures ranging from 15°C to 35°C.
IMAGE 36
Campo Belo I and Campo Belo II housing units, 2015 Gurupi, Tocantins: tropical climate of Central Brazil, with
477 units, with 40.80 m² each.
FINDING IN 3D PRINTING FOR CONSTRUCTION NEW ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN TECTONIC
João Teixeira, Tássia Latarroca, Elis Ribeiro, Manuel Jesus and Bárbara Rangel
3D concrete printing (3DCP) is redefining architectural tectonics by directly linking digital design to material execution. This layer-by-layer manufacturing offers the possibility to reveal the construction process and the material expression, allowing architects to integrate both constructive thinking and aesthetic expression into the tectonic built form through the straight connection between design and production. Today, the material palette for 3DCP includes Portland cement (PC)-based materials, clay and earth-based composites, and gypsum-based materials, with PCbased mixes dominating the market. Exploring alternatives can not only improve environmental performance but can also expand the palette of colors and textures, enriching the building's tectonic expression. Beyond materials, 3DCP reshapes design and construction workflows, promoting early collaboration between architects, engineers and manufacturers. In DIGI@feup, research has been done integrating digital precision, material innovation, and sustainability. 3DCP pioneers a new tectonic paradigm in which design processes and material development emerge as expressive, integral components of contemporary architecture.
TOWARDS A NEW TECTONIC
The notion of tectonics in architecture transcends construction techniques, embracing the cultural, material and expressive dimensions of building. In the context of digital transformation with Industry 4.0 and 5.0, 3D concrete printing (3DCP), emerges as a disruptive technology with the potential to reshape architectural language and practice. By integrating design and construction through additive manufacturing, 3DCP introduces a new paradigm in architectural tectonics. This paradigm is defined by the connection between digital models and material execution, which reduces the distance between the design
Prototypes demonstrate the potential of 3DCP for tectonic design of a façade panel .
Interconnections and relationships between different architectural, engineering, and material aspects that collectively define building tectonics.
IMAGE 42
IMAGE 41
Use of waste materials in 3DCP: (down in the image) examples of waste-derived powders and aggregates; (up in the image) integration process of a waste material into a 3DCP mix.
Textures and colors provided by alternative powders in new 3DCP materials, linking materials development to tectonic principles with 3DCP technology.
IMAGE 43
IMAGE 44
AUTHORS BIOGRAPHY
ALVARO ARANCIBIA
Alvaro Arancibia is an architect trained at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, with an MPhil in Urban Design and a PhD in Architectural Design from the Architectural Association. His work bridges practice and research, focusing on collective housing and urban design in Santiago de Chile. His doctoral thesis received the AA Graduate Prize for Research: Outstanding Work 2015–2016, and between 2022 and 2025 he was co-investigator of the project Housing Standardisation: The Architecture of Regulations and Design Standards. Through his practice, he has won several housing competitions organised by the Chilean Ministry of Housing, including the Mirador Laguna project, completed in 2024. His research and design work have been published internationally and presented at universities in Chile, the UK, the US, and Mexico, contributing to debates on housing policy, standards, and typologies.
GABRIELLA GAMA
Gabriella Gama was born in 1988 in Brasília, Brazil, where she earned her Bachelor's degree in Architecture. She later completed an MPhil at the Architectural Association in London. In 2016, she co-founded the Portugal-based studio Apparatus Architects with Filipe Lourenço. The studio has developed projects in Europe and Brazil, receiving recognition through national and international awards. Recently, their design was selected as the winner for a social housing competition in São Paulo. Gabriella is currently a Lecturer at the University of Miami School of Architecture and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP).
FILIPE LOURENÇO
Filipe Lourenço was born in 1983 in Paris, France. He earned his degree in Architecture and Fine Arts in Paris and later completed an
MPhil at the Architectural Association in London. He gained professional experience at Ateliers Jean Nouvel (AJN) in Paris and on projects across Europe and North America. In 2016, he co-founded the Portugal-based studio Apparatus Architects with Gabriella Gama. The studio has developed projects in Europe and Brazil, receiving recognition through national and international awards. Recently, their design was selected as the winner for a social housing competition in São Paulo. Filipe is currently a Lecturer at the University of Miami School of Architecture and a PhD candidate at Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP).
ALEXANDER GORLIN
Alexander Gorlin is principal of Alexander Gorlin Architects, based in New York. He is a leader in the design of affordable housing and has built more than 1,000 units in New York City. A graduate of the Cooper Union School of Architecture and the Yale School of Architecture, Gorlin is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome, and has taught at Yale, Cooper Union, and the University of Miami. Author of numerous books, including Tomorrow’s Houses: New England Modernism, Kabbalah in Art and Architecture, and the two volumes of The New American Townhouse, his most recent book, Housing the Nation: Social Equity, Architecture, and the Future of Affordable Housing, was published by Rizzoli. El Borinquen Residence in The Bronx, designed by Alexander Gorlin Architects, received the National AIA Housing Award, recognizing the supportive housing development’s social and design impacts.
HENRIQUE MARQUES
Born in 1981 in Paredes. Architect formed in the Faculty of Architecture and Arts of the University "Lusíada" (1998-2003). Worked with some architects such as the office HCAR - Helena Castro e António Raposo (Porto), Architect António Cabral Campello and Architect Júlio De Matos. Worked as well in the City Hall of Paredes (2004-2005) and, in that moment, was invited to be part of the technical staff of the office "Rarcon, Arquitectura e Consultadoria S.A.", where he was promoted to Project Director until October of 2008. In parallel to this professional activity, founded spaceworkers in 2007, with his two partners: Rui Dinis and Carla Duarte. Since then he works as Project Director of this office, participating in lots of public and private projects with various functional programs.
RUI DINIS
Born in 1981 in Paredes. Architect formed in the Faculty of Architecture and Arts of the University "Lusíada" (2000-2006). Worked with the architect António Belém Lima between 2006 and 2007, where he was the project manager of some projects. In parallel to this professional activity
he participated in some competitions of ideas and then he founded spaceworkers in 2007, with his two partners: Henrique Marques and Carla Duarte. Since then works as Project Director of this office, participating in lots of public and private projects with various functional programs.
SAMUEL GONÇALVES
Samuel Gonçalves is an architect and founder of SUMMARY, a Portugal-based studio focused on modular and prefabricated construction. He studied at FAUP – Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, and worked at the Chilean studio ELEMENTAL, directed by Alejandro Aravena. In 2015, he established SUMMARY, which gained international recognition through the GOMOS building system and participation in exhibitions at venues such as the Venice Biennale, the Boston Society of Architects, the Bauhaus Centenary, and the Casa da Arquitectura – Portuguese Centre for Architecture. Samuel has collaborated as a researcher with TU Delft (2024) and CEAU-FAUP (2025). His work ranges across different scales and programs — from collective housing to educational buildings and public space — always exploring the potential of prefabrication and its tectonic effect in architecture.
THIAGO T. A. DE SOVERAL
Dr. Soveral is an architect and urban designer based in Paris and Rio de Janeiro. He is Head of Architecture at BlendLab and a Consultant to the World Bank on Social Housing. He currently teaches at the Architectural Institute of Paris (AI-P), where he also serves as Head of Research. Previously, he taught at FAU–Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and at the AA — Architectural Association in London within the History and Theory Studies programme. He holds a PhD from the AA (UK), a Master’s from the Bauhaus (Dessau/Germany), and a Bachelor’s from USU (Brazil). He is a member of the UrCA research group — Urbanism, Criticism, and Architecture (PROURB | FAU | UFRJ) — and co-editor of the monographic series COPIA. Soveral is partner at A040 architectural practice and his work, both academic and professional, has been exhibited internationally, including in Venice, Copenhagen, and at WUF11 in Katowice..
CAUÊ CAPILLÉ
Dr. Capillé is a Professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (FAU UFRJ) and at the Graduate Programme in Urbanism (PROURB FAU UFRJ). Architect (FAU UFRJ, 2011); PhD in Architecture (the Bartlett UCL, 2016); FAPERJ Post-Doctoral Researcher at PROURB FAU UFRJ (2017-18); Urban Studies Foundation Fellow at ENSA Paris Malaquais (2021-22); Visiting Researcher at Royal College of Art (202122). He is currently Director of the Department of Architectural Design and Communication Coordinator at FAU UFRJ. His research and
design studios focus on the relationship between architectural design, political and urban theories and ordinary urban conditions. His works have been awarded and exhibited on different occasions, including the Venice Architecture Biennale; Ibero-American Biennale, the São Paulo International Architecture Biennale; the European Cultural Centre in Venice; the Institute of Brazilian Architects; and the RIBA President’s Awards for Research.
ARIANE PEREIRA
Ariane Pereira is an architect and urban planner (FAU-UFRJ, 2019) with a specialization in Urban and Regional Planning (IPPUR-UFRJ, 2023). She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Architecture and Urbanism at UFMG. Her work focuses on social housing and urban peripheries. She is a collaborator at the A040 office, where she is involved in projects, including the +Lapena Habitar project—a direct result of her work on the Report on social housing guidelines for the Jardim Lapenna neighbourhood (2021). Ariane has also collectively produced art exhibitions centered on debates about peripheries, and this work has been award-winning (IAB/RJ).
LUCAS MARQUES
Lucas Marques holds a bachelor's degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (FAU UFRJ, 2024) and is currently a master's student in Urbanism at the Graduate Program in Urbanism (PROURB) at the same institution. His research focuses on the genesis of modern spatial conditions, analyzing their theoretical and material roots in proto-modernity, and its developments in the construction of contemporary architectural materiality. He has been a contributor at the A040 office, since 2024. Between 2024 and 2025, he contributed to the urban design practice ARKTO in Rio de Janeiro. In 2021, he provided illustrations for the book Post-Compact City. His work was featured in the (RE)INVENTION exhibition at the 19th Biennale di Venezia in 2025.
BARBARA RANGEL
Architect and Assistant Professor at the Civil Engineering Department of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), where she received her MsC and PhD in Civil Engineering. She started her career working with Rafale Moneo and Álvaro Siza. Her scientific research lies at the intersection of architecture and engineering, focusing on Integrated Project Design with a particular emphasis on 3D printing for construction and Modular Construction. She is the Director of DIGI@feup a multidisciplinary platform focused on construction industrialization concerning 3D printing and modular construction, working in various projects with the industry and other research canters as INEGI and MIT. She is the director Master's Degree in Integrated
Building Design and Construction. She is editor of Cadernos d’Obra and Sebentas d’Obra, a guest Editor for Springer and Taylors and Francis. She has published more than 50 papers and book chapters.
JOÃO TEIXEIRA
João Teixeira is a Portuguese researcher and designer specialising in 3D printing technologies for construction and sustainable design. With an academic background in industrial and product design, João obtained his master’s degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts of University of Porto in 2018, focusing on 3D printing with cementitious materials. He is currently finishing a PhD in Civil Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto. His research lies at the intersection of architecture, civil engineering, and design, with emphasis on advanced manufacturing, sustainable materials, and digital fabrication. His work has been published in international journals and chapters in academic books. Additionally, he was one of the editors of the book "3D Printing for Construction in the Transformation of the Building Industry." Additionally, he has co-supervised multiple master’s theses that explore innovative uses of recycled and natural materials in additive manufacturing.
TÁSSIA LATARROCA
Tássia Latorraca is a registered architect in Portugal and Brazil and a PhD candidate in Civil Engineering. Her doctoral research investigates the thermal performance in complex geometries printed in 3D, using generative and computational design methods. She has over ten years of experience in architectural design and project management. Her academic interests include parametric modeling, digital fabrication, and sustainable architectural systems.
ELIS RIBEIRO
Elis Ribeiro is a designer and researcher from Curitiba, Brazil. She holds a Master’s degree in Industrial and Product Design from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, in collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering (FEUP), Portugal, completed in 2023. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Civil Engineering at FEUP. Since her undergraduate studies at the Federal University of Technology of Paraná (UTFPR) in 2019, she has focused on studying and applying waste materials in new products. During her Master’s, she expanded her research by incorporating 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) technology and exploring waste residues. In her doctoral work, she investigates residues that can be used in cementitious mortars through additive manufacturing, aiming to valorise these materials and reduce environmental impact, with a sustainable approach that connects design, architecture, and civil engineering.
MANUEL JESUS
Manuel Jesus is a Civil Engineer and PhD candidate in Civil Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto (FEUP), where he also serves as an Invited Assistant Professor. His research focuses on 3D printing and 3D surveying technologies applied to construction, particularly in the context of built heritage. Manuel has authored several peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and conference papers on additive manufacturing and related topics. He participated in the FCT-funded project TherBlock3Dp – 3D Printing of Thermal Blocks as a research fellow and co-supervised a master’s dissertation at FEUP. He also completed specialized training in Robotic Manufacturing in Design, Architecture, and Construction at the University of Minho.
FIRST LINE: Veruska Vaconez, Alvaro Arancibia
SECOND LINE: Grabriella Gama, Filipe Lourenço, Alexander Gorlin
THIRD LINE: Henrique Marques, Rui Dinis, Samuel Gonçalves
FOURTH LINE: Thiago T. A. de Soveral, Ariane Pereira, Lucas Marques, Cauê Capillé
FIFTH LINE: Barbara Rangel, João Teixeira
SIXTH LINE: Tássia Latarroca, Elis Ribeiro, Manuel Jesus
SPECIAL THANKS TO
VERUSKA VACONEZ
ALVARO ARANCIBIA
GRABRIELLA GAMA
FILIPE LOURENÇO
ALEXANDER GORLIN
HENRIQUE MARQUES
RUI DINIS
SAMUEL GONÇALVES
THIAGO T. A. DE SOVERAL
ARIANE PEREIRA
PUBLISHER
AMAG publisher
COLLECTION
Pocket Books
SERIES
Housing, Infrastructure, and Transportation volume i
VOLUME
PB 09
TITLE
THE CITY AS A STAGE: HOUSING AND THE STORIES WE BUILD
AUTHORS
Veruska Vazconez
Álvaro Arancibia
Gabriella Gama
Filipe Lourenço
Alexander Gorlin spaceworkers®
Samuel Gonçalves
Thiago Soveral
Cauê Capillé
João Teixeira
Tássia Latarroca
Elis Ribeiro
Manuel Jesus
Bárbara Rangel
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Ana Leal
EDITORIAL TEAM
Ana Leal, architect
Filipa Figueiredo Ferreira, designer
Inês Rompante, designer
João Soares, architect
LUCAS MARQUES
CAUÊ CAPILLÉ
BARBARA RANGEL
JOÃO TEIXEIRA
TÁSSIA LATARROCA
ELIS RIBEIRO
MANUEL JESUS
TAYLOR TITONI
STACY TITONI
JOSÉ MARIA FERREIRA
PUBLICATION DATE October 2025
ISBN 978-989-36284-9-2
LEGAL DEPOSIT 475406/20
PRINTING Graficamares
RUN NUMBER 1000 numbered copies
OWNER AMAG publisher
VAT NUMBER 513 818 367
CONTACT hello@amagpublisher.com
FOLLOW US AT www.amagpublisher.com
VERUSKA VASCONEZ
THE CITY AS A STAGE: HOUSING AND THE STORIES WE BUILD
Veruska Vasconez is a Brazilian architect, urban designer, and academic whose work bridges the realms of practice, research, and teaching. She teaches at the University of Miami School of Architecture, where she leads advanced studios focused on housing, infrastructure, and urban resilience. She is the co-founder of Flare Design Studio (2023) and OLAB (2022), and she is a Partner at AWP-Architects in Paris. She is also associated with Meetinghouse Miami, an interdisciplinary cultural platform. Her work spans Europe, Latin America, and the United States, critically exploring the role of architecture in shaping fair urban futures through material innovation, collaborative practice, and international academic exchange.
The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. As of 2024, the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over 350 academic majors and programs, including the Miller School of Medicine in Miami's Health District, the law school on the main campus, the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science on Virginia Key, and additional research facilities in southern Miami-Dade County.
