The Portuguese architect Diogo Burnay was appointed to be the director of the School of Architecture of the Faculty of Architecture and Planning of Dalhousie University, at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, after being shortlisted among three finalists in an international call for applications.

Diogo Burnay applied last year to the post of Director of the School of Architecture at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and in August was selected for a "short-list" which also included an American, an Italian and a Norwegian architect.

Working outside of Portugal is not new for this 46 year old architect who founded in 1999 in Lisbon, next to Cristina Veríssimo, the office CVDB (1). Diogo Burnay was living in Macau when he taught at the Department of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong. He also taught in various universities in the United States, the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington and at the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and then College of Design of the University of Minnesota.

Diogo Burnay is not leaving Portugal due to the European crisis.
"to leave the country was a decision that has nothing to do with the current crisis. This crisis is obviously very much felt, as most of our work is related to public and community buildings and programmes and at this point both central and local governments are cutting considerably the funding for public buildings, the architect stated to the Portuguese News Agency Lusa.

"What really motivated me was the opportunity. I thought specially about what one can still experiment and how to enjoy the opportunity to be play this role in a school of architecture that has been able to produce quite good work with its community of just about 200 students" explained Diogo Burnay.

Diogo Burnay was born in Lisbon in 1965, studied architecture at the School of Architecture at the Technical University of Lisbon (2), where he was an assistant professor between 1997 and 2011. He did his Masters in Architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, and worked at Utopos, with Maria Manuel Godinho Almeida and Duarte Cabral de Mello in Lisbon (1989), BDP in London (1989-1992) and Manuel Vicente (1993-1995) and OBS (1995-1997) both in Macau.

CVDB ARQUITECTOS was founded in Lisbon in 1999 with a group of architects. The practice has mainly developed public and community projects, such as libraries, museums, theatres, day care centers, commission through public national and international competitions. The Studio will continue to be based in Lisbon and will be managed by Cristina Veríssimo e Tiago Filipe Santos (3), said Diogo Burnay to P3.

"What I mostly enjoy this profession is the possibility, through projects, to develop a connection with the community," said the architect who will soon start a new phase of his life like the Portuguese architect Pedro Gadanho(4), which this week began his work as the curator of the Department of Architecture and Design of MOMA (Museum of Modern Art in New York).

Diogo Burnay is also developing a project with Peter Gadanho in Torres Vedras for new performance and exhibition spaces and headquarters of TRANSFORMA, Space Transforms, which consists in the rehabilitation and conversion of a set of existing buildings in the old city center.

1. CVDB, www.cvdbarquitectos.com
2. Faculty of Architecture Technical University of Lisbon, www.fa.utl.pt
3. Architect Tiago Filipe Santos, www.tiagofilipesantos.com
4. Architect Pedro Gadanho, shrapnelcontemporary.wordpress.com