Architecture: Research Guide

Located in São Paulo, the Cartola Apartment was designed to be a cozy urban retreat for a couple residing in the state´s interior but working part of the week in the capital. The 65 m² property underwent extensive renovations, including demolition of masonry, new plumbing and electrical installations, new finishes, lighting, carpentry, and furniture. The project's premise was to adapt the apartment's configuration to a more flexible and contemporary lifestyle by integrating the living room and kitchen, increasing the number of bathrooms, and incorporating a remote work desk. Despite its compact size, the apartment's modular and rational layout allowed these interventions to..

The Aqualudic Center "L'O" is located a ten-minute walk from Orléans train station, occupying the former site of the city's jail, decommissioned in 2014. Once an urban rupture, cut off from its surroundings by a long perimeter wall, the site now hosts a public facility that establishes a renewed dialogue with its neighborhood.

Located in Vilamoura, Algarve, the plot benefits from geographical advantages: total sun exposure, proximity to the sea, and views over a scenic golf course. The plot, with approximately 870sqm, is part of a housing development characterized by side-by-side neighbouring plots. Therefore, the main premises of the project were established from the outset:

The ArchDaily Student Project Awards submission deadline has been extended by one week. Students now have until February 20, 2026, at 11:59 pm (CET) to submit their projects.

The intervention covers a formerly useless area on the fourth floor of the Hospital de Navarra Emergency building. This area is composed of two similar volumes, now occupied by the new allergology unit.

As an installation for SUSAS 2025 (Shanghai Urban Space Art Season), this project is situated on Fuxing Island, Shanghai—once the former China Shipbuilding Factory, which relocated across the Huangpu River in the early 2000s. The client initially asked for an intervention to enhance the slipway's exposed elevation. Yet on site we realized the slipway is more than a façade: it traces the site's central axis and, more importantly, was the final stage where ships were assembled and launched. Rather than a surface upgrade, the project begins by activating a larger imagination embedded in the scale and memory of the place.

Niko Restaurant is located in the city center of Yerevan, Armenia, within a building originally designed during the Soviet period by architect Nikoghayos Buniatyan. The client's brief called for a comfort-food restaurant interior developed within a very limited budget and a tight timeframe.

The transformation of the chapel of the Saint-Joseph convent in Saint-Félicien is founded on a guiding principle: designing with what already exists. The intervention seeks neither to erase nor to stage the heritage, but rather to offer a precise and measured reinterpretation of its architectural qualities in service of new cultural uses. The 342 m² chapel has been converted into a versatile cultural venue hosting cinema, theatre, and exhibitions. The project forms part of a broader strategy for the requalification of the convent and its gardens, led by the municipality in collaboration with local associations. From the earliest stages, the definition of the program was developed in close ..

Heritage sites constitute complex spatial archives in which architecture, history, and collective memory converge. They encompass a wide spectrum of contexts—from archaeological remains, ancient and historic townscapes, UNESCO-listed landscapes, to early modern civic structures and industrial infrastructures. Yet these environments confront challenges: climate change, urban transformation, disaster, shifting social needs, and the gradual erosion of material fabric. Revitalization and restoration projects respond to these conditions by positioning architectural and spatial practice as an active mediator between preservation and the contemporary topologies.

Vault House is conceived as a contemporary tropical residence that balances raw materiality with warmth, openness, and family-centric living. Designed for a multi-generational family comprising a couple, their daughter, and parents, the house responds to a clear client vision: a home that is unique, user-friendly, and deeply connected to natural light, ventilation, and greenery.

For many architects, schematic design is defined by a familiar tension. It is the phase of open-ended exploration—where multiple ideas are tested, challenged, and refined for clients to define a project's direction. In essence, it's where the design magic happens. The challenge is rarely a lack of ideas, but the effort required to test and evaluate those ideas properly under time-, resource-, and budget constraints. It is an especially acute challenge for architects as early design work must balance creativity with client needs and commercial feasibility.

The project of the Sacred Village Yawanawá is not just a built ensemble; it is the materialization of a deep dialogue lasting 14 years between Marcelo Rosenbaum and Chief Nixiwaka Biraci Brasil.