Carla Leitao

Few would disagree the bare bone common language of design disciplines is Geometry -- a system to help measure, before being tainted by dimension, discourse and meaning. And yet, Geometry has an agency: the drive to smooth differences between all things brought to its common roof, and, in that process,...

Contemporary discourse in architecture and design reflects upon the increasing ability to engage the lively part of matter and train this sensibility as not only a broader search for tools as much as an agenda of exploration -- that expands realms of thought on the concepts of information exchange, nature...

I have previously reflected on concepts of 'particle architecture,' architectural design which engages the potential future varied performances of microscopic levels of fabrics that build designed spaces and the large ensembles they can create. This time, I present a brief talk with biothing's principal Alisa Andrasek. Currently teaching at the...

Fewer things are as enthralling as learning that a material is few moments away from being "alive." The expanding definition of "life" or "alive" is not only a consequence of joyful abuse of language and metaphors, but also the outcome of an increasingly able gaze upon the things that make...

"The last historical act of writing may well have been the moment when, in the early seventies, Intel engineers laid out some dozen square meters of blueprint paper (64 square meters, in the case of the later 8086) in order to design the hardware architecture of their first integrated microprocessor."

This article develops the theme of designing future library spaces, originally initiated in a previous article.

Libraries are located at a unique intersection of spatial design. They are spaces that store, articulate and distribute formats (media), which are vessels of information. As archives, libraries are spatial structures that...

(Images in the article are for purposes of illustration only and refer to the piece/installation "Scenario" by Francisco Tropa -- the Official Portuguese Representation at the Venice Biennale Arte 2011. More information on piece, artist and credits for images in article, can be found here.)

I would like...

Celebrating warm days (northern hemisphere...) can very well go hand-in-hand with welcoming the increasing presence of ocean or oceanic museums, and their inevitable site-specific qualities. This article looks at the Cité de l'Océan et du Surf building in Biarritz, France, which opened on June 25th and was designed by SHA...

This is the opening article of a series of articles (3), which aim to look at libraries and the landscapes they are a part of and help build. Though archives are the mother concept of libraries and include many other typologies such as museums, this series will focus more specifically...

"...During the day I have only the power of those who sleep in the day - far fewer, so I am limited. Though I'm bolstered by people watching TV, since that's a form of sleeping. I'm the sum total of the unconscious cognition of every brain in the city. And...

Back in 2006, while participating in the NewBlood exhibition organized by the Portuguese Architects Guild, our office stated that our approach to work was one where we attempt to voluntarily un-focus or blur the image of a building and instead imagine we are designing fogs. We find that this 'mist'...