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The world’s greatest rainforest – which is a vital provider of oxygen and carbon sequestration – lost 739sq km during the [month of May], equivalent to two football pitches every minute, according to data from the government’s satellite monitoring agency. — The Guardian
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has accelerated at a drastic clip since far-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was inaugurated in January 2019. The Brazilian government takes monthly satellite observations to survey the deforestation, and it found that logging rates increased... View full entry
UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Culture Ernesto Ottone R, Thomas Vonier, President of the International Union of Architects (UIA), and Verena Vicentini Andreatta, Municipal Secretary of the City of Rio for Urbanism, on Friday 18 January announced that the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) will be the World Capital of Architecture for 2020. — UNESCO
The new World Capital of Architecture initiative is part of a recent partnership between UNESCO and the International Union of Architects (UIA) and allows the designated city to host the triennial UIA World Congress. Under the theme "All the worlds. Just one world," Rio de Janeiro is expected... View full entry
Hours after an immense fire consumed the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, a crowd of protestors gathered in front of the wrecked institution on last night (3 September) to protest the financial neglect that led to its demise. The 200-year-old historical building lacked an efficient sprinkler system—a result of years of incremental budget cuts by the Brazilian government—and was quickly gutted when the blaze erupted shortly after the museum closed to visitors on Sunday (2 September). — theartnewspaper.com
Current Brazilian president Michel Temer and former president Rousseff are being blamed for a failure to properly maintain the National Museum in Rio De Janeiro after a consuming fire broke out 3 days ago. In the aftermath of the flames the museum's facade has mostly survived, yet aerial shots... View full entry
Niemeyer originally designed the property for his wife’s sister, Carmen Baldo. Seven years ago, Baldo’s children sold it to the artist Adriana Varejão and her partner, the film producer Pedro Buarque. — The New York Times
The New York Times shows off a newly renovated home in Brazil designed by Oscar Niemeyer, one of the country's greatest architects. The five year long upgrade was carried out by Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão and her partner, the film producer Pedro Buarque, who dramatically transformed the... View full entry
An abandoned 26-story building in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, caught fire and collapsed early Tuesday, showering the surrounding streets with fiery embers and killing at least one person, firefighters said.
About 150 firefighters were battling the blaze, which started at about 1:30 a.m. local time. It is thought to have been caused by a gas explosion, according to reports.
— NPR
Though officially abandoned as the former São Paulo headquarters of the federal police, about 50 families were believed to have occupied the building as squatters. Most people have reportedly managed to get out, however at least one person died in the building collapse, firefighters said... View full entry
Oscar Niemeyer's Communist party headquarters in Paris was recently captured by photographer Denis Esakov. Take a new look at the Brazilian architect's concrete achievement, one of his first in Europe. View full entry
Pioneering African-American architect Georgia Louise Harris Brown had a knack for seeking out the most fertile architecture scenes in the world during her long career. She practiced in Chicago during Mies van der Rohe’s prime and, from there, moved to Brazil, where a singular modernist language was being created for Brasilia, the most ambitious planned capital of the 20th century. — autodesk.com
Georgia Louise Harris Brown has been featured as part of Redshift's Respect series, focusing on architect visionaries. Brown was the first African-American women to graduate with an architecture degree, and the second professionally licensed African-American female architect in the... View full entry
Copacabana has conjured images of beauty, sand and ocean, long before Barry Manilow was singing its praises. Capitalizing on some of the best beach-adjacent real estate north of Havana, the Emiliano Hotel enlisted the help of Oppenheim Architecture for the hotel brands new location on Rio de... View full entry
[...] Penn State landscape architecture professor Timothy Baird and architecture professor José Duarte taught a new studio that engaged students in the study of one Brazilian favela via virtual reality (VR) technology. The studio, which paired architecture students with landscape architecture students, posited VR as a proxy for expensive site visits. “Developing countries can’t always afford consultants because of the distance and difficulty to travel,” says Baird [...] — Landscape Architecture Magazine
"Duarte, who has studied informal settlements across the globe, believes in their power to model emergent patterns of more sustainable resource consumption in the developing world, and in the ability for contemporary technology to decode how they work," the Landscape Architecture Magazine writes... View full entry
As the Pritzker Prize marks its 40th anniversary with the upcoming 2018 edition, the award which has come to be known internationally as architecture’s highest honor welcomes two new members to its jury: architect and 2012 Laureate Wang Shu and André Aranha Corrêa do Lago. They will be... View full entry
Designed by a Brazilian architecture firm SUBdV Architecture, this Factory and Office Annex in São Paulo, fuses high-tech architectural design strategies with local low-tech construction methodologies. The façade system references the traditional Brazilian ‘cobogo’ shading screen, which... View full entry
The Olympics are a costly venture. In fact, they’re more like a high-stakes gamble. Countries pour money into the festivities, often going far over budget, with the hope that they’ll receive a return—either through tourist dollars or else through raising the city’s profile internationally... View full entry
As part of this year’s Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge, the Brazilian megacity drafted a proposal for a digital interchange platform designed to connect vendors with restaurants, markets, and other retailers in an effort to make it easier for them to sell their wares. On Wednesday, São Paulo’s proposal was named the winner of the third ever Mayors Challenge, which gives it a $5 million cash prize to implement the idea. — citylab.com
"Four other cities will also receive $1 million each to implement their respective proposals. The winners include two Colombian cities, Medellín and Bogotá, as well as Santiago, Chile, and Guadalajara, Mexico."Click here to learn more about the winning proposal "São Paulo: Growing Farmers’... View full entry
The SP_Penthouse in Sao Paulo isn't Don Draper's never-before-seen getaway from a lost episode of “Mad Men”, although it can surely pass as a set for the TV show with all those modernist furnishings. Since Studio MK27 completed the polished abode last year, it has gained recognition in... View full entry
Despite reports of dangerous levels of pollution in Rio's Guanabara Bay and concerns that floating garbage could damage or slow competitors' boats, sailors at the 2016 Olympics are showing little or no fear of getting into the water [...]
Many said the dangers of sailing in Rio have been overblown and worried that the water concerns are overshadowing some of the most exciting and challenging sailing of their lives.
— Reuters
So far, the Rio Olympics seem to be going pretty well. But before they opened, a series of issues plagued the preparations. For some background, check out these links:Athletes refuse to move into Rio's Olympic Village, citing “blocked toilets, leaking pipes and exposed wiring”Rio... View full entry
