Project implementation: Argentina
Project development: Argentina

vbrügg is the firm of architect Valentín Brügger, a Córdoba native and graduate of FAUD-UNC. It is a personal space for architectural and artistic production, experimentation, learning, and communication, where he works individually and collectively.

Casa Lelis is located in Los Reartes, a community in the mountains of Córdoba, Argentina, where traditional architecture is characterized by stone walls and lightweight roofs made of twigs and metal sheets. In this context, the project respects local technology and synthesizes its materiality in concrete and white elements. On a 10 x 30 lot, the 8 x 12 house is organized in longitudinal strips that define the ground floor areas: service, living room, and gallery, on which the bedrooms on the upper floor are superimposed perpendicularly.

To the south is the service module, built in cyclopean concrete and of a contained scale. Its stone facade continues toward the interior in the warm areas, in front of the kitchen, in the center of the fireplace, and behind the barbecue. This solid volume has two irregular, faceted perforations, as if they were large quarried stones. One at the back creates a small balcony overlooking the garden, and the other is a mirror that reflects a portion of the mountainous landscape in the facade's composition, allowing observation of the city's hustle and bustle from the kitchen.

On the staircase, the concrete overflows toward the living room, with its first steps emerging from the ground and rising like a light structure of folded white sheet metal floating between the concrete walls. To the north are the other two modules intended for social spaces, featuring tectonic and industrial technology, and material unity through the white finish.

The structure consists of a metal frame arranged every four meters, supporting the roof. This, in turn, is constructed of round twigs, clad internally with wooden planks and externally with corrugated metal sheets. This lightness allows the interior space to flow, integrating the living room with the gallery. The upper floor overlooks both the courtyard and the dining room.

Finally, the house is enveloped by a system of movable enclosures that creates and defines an intermediate space. The various opening configurations regulate the entry of light, defining the interior atmosphere. Thus, the envelope becomes mutable, sensitive to the environment and use. As this is a weekend home, it remains closed most of the time, emphasizing its formal synthesis.
Details such as the entrance door handle made of four Micosa Branca stones, a suspended field stone step on the porch, the intentional changes in scale and a glazed line along the house, which separates the white from the concrete base, aim to reinforce the evident duality between solidity and lightness of the work.

With a carefully directed opening to the mountainous landscape, the house blends harmoniously into its surroundings. Furthermore, the overlapping of different construction techniques reinforces the dialogue between the essential, the lasting, and the ethereal.

Project implementation: Italy
Project development: Italy, France

The ISTAT headquarters is a project based on ethical, strategic, economic, and functional choices, with a focus on space and resource efficiency. By optimizing the design, construction costs are reduced by approximately €6.5 million compared to the competition budget, while ensuring high performance, long-lasting durability, and a representative institutional image. The building is an L-shaped volume of 38,000 m² designed to accommodate 2,000 users, set within an 8,100 m² public park that includes a reflecting pool and sports trails. Local travertine, used as a brise-soleil on the south, east, and west facades and as a ventilated cladding on the north, interacts with natural light and evokes the collective memory of Rome. The building's optimized plan minimizes floor space and costs, allowing savings to be reinvested in advanced energy and environmental efficiency measures, including ventilated envelopes, photochromic and photovoltaic glazing, bioclimatic atriums, rainwater harvesting systems, and green roofs. The interiors are flexible, filled with natural light, and promote organizational well-being, offering unobstructed views of the vegetation and numerous common areas. Atriums and landscaped balconies create inviting breakout spaces, improving thermal comfort and indoor air quality. In addition to functional excellence, the project contributes to the city with a generous landscape: a public maritime pine forest set on a gently undulating, cool, and sheltered site, providing lasting environmental and social value to the urban context.

Project implementation: Brazil
Project development: Brazil

KAAN Architecten: Building for People, Nature and Future Generations
Our field is constantly evolving. Architecture is increasingly taking on a deeper social meaning and actively contributing to the well-being of people and nature. We don't just focus on building design, but recognize that each intervention directly impacts our planet's ecosystem and climate. In this way, we are building a future in which architecture makes a real difference to both society and the world around us.

A good building requires more than design skill; it requires awareness of sustainability, social value, and environmental impact. No architect can achieve this alone—it requires collaboration, openness to the community, and input from diverse experts. Advances in materials technology, climate adaptation, building systems, construction methods, and cultural history all play a vital role. Equally important is how a building is received by its residents and users, as valued and appreciated spaces are preserved and passed on, extending their intrinsic useful life and ultimately making them more sustainable.

In our projects, we seek to bring all these factors together and make informed choices. On the other hand, we seek value in obsolete buildings, which often serve as the foundation for their transformation into the future. For us, a good project always begins with a strong narrative, one in which everyone involved believes and in which each participant can offer valuable input.
At the 14th São Paulo Architecture Biennial, KAAN Architecten presents three projects that explore the relationship between architecture, landscape, and memory: the Eco-Museum and Orla Piratininga Park in Niterói; the Marcos Amaro Art Factory (FAMA) in Itu; and the Lagoa do Sino Library at UFSCar in Buri, São Paulo. Different in scale, program, and context, the projects reveal a common approach: understanding architecture as an ongoing process, attentive to the transformations of the territory, cultural heritage, and possibilities for social coexistence.

The Eco-Museum acts as a catalyst for environmental regeneration and social inclusion, serving as a community forum, educational space, and a landmark for valuing biodiversity. This structure is part of the Piratininga Waterfront Park, developed under the leadership of Phytorestore, the largest phytoremediation project in Latin America, restoring 720,000 m² of the lagoon through filter gardens and new public areas.

The renovation of the Marcos Amaro Art Factory revives the memory of an early 20th-century industrial heritage site, listed by CONDEPHAAT, and transforms it into a dynamic cultural hub. The masterplan embraces time: ruins and historical layers coexist with new structures, preserving authenticity and nurturing creative processes.

UFSCar's Lagoa do Sino Library, developed in partnership with Triptyque, establishes itself as the campus's core. Combining a plaza, auditorium, and offices, the building combines traditional construction techniques, such as rammed earth, with contemporary wood solutions. The result is a sustainable, permeable, and socially active space that values local knowledge and fosters community identity.
Together, the three projects highlight the diversity and coherence of KAAN Architecten's practice: from heritage restoration to sustainable innovation, from the territorial to the everyday. All reaffirm the conviction that architecture should foster encounters, strengthen bonds between people and landscapes, and design possible futures based on attentive listening to the present. In this way, together, we are building architecture that is not only functional and aesthetic, but also socially valued and resilient.

Project implementation: Brazil
Project development: Brazil

Coming soon.

Project implementation: USA
Project development: USA

This project investigated the relationship between food, architectural, and urban systems within the context of sustainable and self-sufficient agricultural production in Hawaii. Despite being the only US state with a 12-month agricultural season, the island currently has only 10 days of food reserves if its air and/or sea connections with the mainland are compromised. In this same remote context, approximately 1,000 years ago, the Ahupua'a, a traditional natural resource management system, was created. In this system, ecological elements organize and feed back into each other in a vertical band extending from the ocean to the mountains. Within the geological section, through the coexistence of habitation and land cultivation, the system transforms the watershed into an intensive technological platform for food production. Before the European invasion (1778), several of these systems were fully functional and supported an estimated population of 800,000. Currently, only a few fragments such as lagoon fields (Lo'i), fishponds (loko) and dry land terraces (Kuaiwi) can still be found scattered throughout the islands.

To synchronize demands for urbanization and food production with vernacular strategies and management of environmental conditions in the river basin and ocean, the proposed master plan aims to optimize the existing production system, mediating the development of its urbanization, assuming the role of a support system. By introducing food production at the neighborhood scale through the manipulation of the existing relief, the architecture and landscape become an integrated system.

The new urban morphology enables water purification and retention for irrigating urban gardens. The proposed system also redesigns the river's course, responding to parameters such as topography, rock formation, and existing vegetation. By creating streams and retention/treatment ponds for irrigating crops integrated into the housing system, ecological buffer zones are established, thus promoting sustainable densification of the urban periphery adjacent to environmentally protected areas.

The challenges faced by Oahu with the growing pressure for urbanization in areas of environmental value are not unique: countries in the global South, such as Brazil, could benefit from a territorial organization system like Ahu'pua. Many islands and bays in Brazil also have conditions very similar to Oahu: a tropical climate, mountainous terrain, with freshwater streams, and sufficient river precipitation to support crops without mechanical irrigation. Some notable examples are the islands of Florianópolis, Fernando de Noronha, and the Ilha Grande region. The latter, in particular, has been experiencing significant pressure for urbanization, especially due to the tourism industry.

Project implementation: Brazil, Bolivia
Project development: Brazil, Bolivia

Forest Gens is a critical cartography project that reveals the extent of anthropogenic transformations in the Amazon. Using advanced mapping techniques in the Amazonian context, the project reveals the multiple layers that make up the region. From the footprint of current societies to territorial manipulations dating back centuries, the mapping presents the Amazon as a complex, human-shaped landscape, not as a homogeneous, untouched forest.

The work portrays the Amazon territory at multiple scales, highlighting how the interaction between geography and human interventions—past and present—allows for the development of hypotheses about the region's occupation. A focus on recent data obtained through remote sensing images in the Cotoca region of Bolivia reveals archaeological remains of ancient forms of low-density tropical urbanism. Similarly, a system of interconnected sites of indigenous black earth—organic residues of human occupation used to estimate the size and duration of ancient settlements—suggests prolonged manipulation of the Amazon environment by human societies.

Taken together, these visualizations contribute to raising awareness of the traces our ways of relating to this landscape have left throughout history, profoundly altering the boundaries between nature and society in this environment. The work is expected to contribute to the growing debate on how our societies can reinvent the relationship between urbanization and nature conservation, and imagine radically new—and less anthropocentric—futures for the Amazon.

Authorship
Concept: POLES | Political Ecology of Space
Collaboration: AO | Architects Office
Team:
Gabriel Kozlowski (Director)
Miguel Darcy
Carol Passos
Thiago Engers
Chiara Scotoni
Archaeological Research in Bolivia (Direction):
Heiko Prümers
Carla Jaimes Betancourt

Project implementation: Brazil
Project development: Brazil

Inhabiting the Landscape – A modular system for low-impact construction in remote environments

Context and Concept
Cabana Zero is the prototype of a series of 11 shelters designed for a spiritual retreat inspired by the indigenous traditions of the Peruvian Amazon. The proposal seeks simplicity, low impact, and a direct connection between the built space and nature. Located in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, it combines a compact interior space and a dry bathroom, both clad in natural wood, intended for individual seclusion. In contrast, the darkened wooden veranda frames the landscape and intensifies the immersion in the forest.

Design and Construction
The structure rests on six 10x10 cm wooden pillars, echoing the slenderness of the neighboring trunks. Longitudinal and transverse beams, spaced every 1.20 m, define the 2.40 m cubic module of the interior space. A significant portion of the wood was reused from a pre-existing building on the site, reducing environmental impact and connecting the project to the local history. The enclosure features PET fiber insulation, and a secondary roof creates an air layer that reduces the thermal load. Elevated off the ground, the structure uses bolted metal connections and concrete footings, facilitating assembly and disassembly, and minimal disturbance to the site.

Autonomy and Ecology
The cabin operates off-grid: it has no electricity; waste is treated by composting toilets, and graywater is treated by banana tree circles, enriching the soil. The absence of mirrors and glass reinforces the contemplative approach and the disconnection sought during the retreat.

System and Impact
As the first example of a replicable system, the project was designed for hard-to-reach areas, allowing transportation and assembly by small teams without heavy machinery. This approach enabled the construction of 11 additional units in more difficult-to-access areas on the same site, validating the system's adaptability to different logistical and geographic conditions.

Project implementation: Italy, Brazil
Project development: Brazil

As part of the 14th Architecture Biennial, whose central theme is “Extremes,” Studio Arthur Casas, in collaboration with the Arthur Casas Institute of Architecture and Innovation (IACAI), presents a timeline that systematizes architectural and urban projects designed to address the challenges posed by climate change at different scales.

The projects selected for the exhibition span a diverse range of geographic and climatic contexts, from interventions in dense urban environments, such as the Ícaro Building in Curitiba, to initiatives in the Legal Amazon, such as the Moitará Exchange Center, located in the Xingu Indigenous Park, and the MuCA in Belterra, Pará. These works exemplify an architectural approach that prioritizes integration with the bioclimatic and cultural specificities of each location, promoting solutions that combine technological innovation and environmental responsibility.

Based on research into their own practice, Studio Arthur Casas and IACAI selected the following projects:

-Brazilian Pavilion (Milan, Italy, 2014-2015; Naples, Italy, 2025-2027);
-MuCA – Administrative Village (Belterra, Pará, 2018-2028);
-Icarus Building (Curitiba, Paraná, 2014-2019)
-Moitará Exchange Center (Xingu Park, 2024-2026)

The timeline outlined in the exhibition highlights the consolidation of sustainable thinking in Studio Arthur Casas' practice over the past two decades. This journey culminated in the creation of IACAI, a non-profit institution dedicated to research into technologies and innovations geared toward sustainability and industrialization in the construction industry. The institute seeks to identify and address gaps in the development of construction practices, examining the potential impacts of such advances in addressing environmental issues affecting Brazil.

Through the Biennial, Studio Arthur Casas and IACAI reaffirm their commitment to architecture that transcends aesthetic functionality, positioning themselves as agents of socio-environmental transformation. The Biennial exhibition offers an opportunity to discuss and inspire new approaches that integrate innovation, sustainability, and climate responsibility, contributing to the advancement of theoretical and practical discourse in the field of architecture.