Articles by Eduardo Souza

As awareness of water scarcity, water stress and environmental sustainability grows around the world, the concept of “water footprint” is becoming increasingly relevant. Unlike its more popular cousin, “carbon footprint“, which focuses on greenhouse gas emissions, the water footprint (WF) provides a holistic view of water used throughout the life cycle of a product, process, or activity. It measures the amount of water consumed (directly and indirectly) and polluted –taking into account different types of water resources– and serves as a valuable tool for companies, policymakers, and individuals to understand and address their water-related impacts. There are even online calculators that measure our individual footprints through simple questions about our homes, appliances and even eating habits.

Composed of very fine mineral particles and formed through the weathering and erosion of rocks over long periods of time, clay has properties that make it useful for a wide range of applications. When wet, it becomes extremely malleable and plastic, and can be molded into different shapes. When dry, it is hard and rigid, and is widely used for construction and ceramics. Clay pavers are quite common for outdoor use due to their durability, resistance to weather and traffic, their natural hues and ease of installation.

In medieval cities, walls played a crucial function, acting both as a defense against external threats and as a symbol of power and control, while also regulating local trade. The access to the interior of these cities was strictly controlled by guarded gates, drawbridges, and portcullises, ensuring the free flow of local residents and simultaneously obstructing travelers and potential invaders. While fortified towers and armed guards are now primarily associated with prisons, creating access conditions that promote security, reliability, and practicality remains a challenge for architects and designers, especially in complex infrastructure projects such as airports, hospitals, and educational centers. 

Ancient civilizations like the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans understood long ago the importance of sanitation and wastewater management, building elaborate sewage systems by using underground drainage channels to carry wastewater away from their cities. These systems relied on gravity to transport wastewater to nearby bodies of water, since water cannot flow upward without being pumped. Today, many sewage systems continue using gravity in a similar way, with a suitable slope that facilitates the flow of wastewater downhill to treatment facilities or other infrastructure. This also occurs inside private lots, where a height difference is needed between the building’s piping and the urban drainage or sewage system. But there are times when the available height difference is not sufficient, or when the system is lower than necessary, causing gravity to get in the way, and making the system impossible to function in turn.

When it comes to buildings, there are several factors that contribute to creating something truly luxurious: attention to detail, use of premium, high-quality materials, and unique designs. Lately, the environmental impact of building decisions has also entered heavily into this equation, and the development of a luxury project requires all steps and products to take sustainability into account. At One Za’abeel, the new addition to the Dubai skyline, the careful choice of all solutions, manufacturers and surfaces had a direct influence on the final look and atmosphere of the building, which aims to be an urban landmark and raise the standard of buildings in the UAE.

Finding effective and valuable solutions for agricultural waste management has been an inspiring challenge for researchers. By-products from monocultures, such as residues from soybean production, corn cobs, straw, sunflower seeds, and cellulose, are often destined for soil composting, used as animal feed, or even converted into energy in order to reduce waste and mitigate the environmental impacts associated with agricultural activities. Sugarcane production, for example, generates a significant amount of waste, totaling about 600 million tons of bagasse fiber waste from an annual production of two billion tons of sugarcane. This waste has a promising potential to replace energy-intensive building systems, such as concrete and brick, by providing building materials that combine sustainability and structural efficiency.

Designing a good chair is a much more challenging task than we might think. To begin with, several factors must be addressed, such as ergonomics, aesthetics, materials, functionality and durability. In addition, it is essential to define the purpose for which it will be used: an office chair has different requirements than a reading armchair or a dining chair, for example. Only when all these elements are carefully balanced and thought-out can you achieve a truly excellent chair. And often, a good design can end up triggering many other variations throughout the years.

How can a space that is no longer essential become valued again? The traditional office as we know it is disappearing with the changes brought about by technological advances and globalization, all of which was accelerated by the impositions of the pandemic. As living and working become inseparable activities and hybrid, flexible work arrangements are now the norm in many fields, offices will need to become increasingly sustainable, healthier, and also more comfortable. But how can architects and designers design workspaces so that people will continue to want to inhabit them? What solutions and furnishings can meet the needs of occupants, with flexible solutions that can adapt to a variety of activities and purposes?

Seattle-based Olson Kundig is an example of how context and culture can influence a firm’s design approach. Founded in 1966 by Jim Olson and now consisting of hundreds of employees and four other partners, including Tom Kundig, the firm has an extensive and diverse portfolio that spans different scales and budgets. In lectures and interviews, Kundig in particular often talks about how having grown up in a region with a strong mining and lumbering tradition has influenced the industrial and rational aesthetic of his designs, the use of durable and low-maintenance materials, and a special attention to craftsmanship. In many of the firm’s designs, however, the ingenuity and emphasis on moving parts –blurring the boundaries between inside and outside– is striking. This is usually achieved by incorporating hand-held devices that allow users to activate the building directly, connecting them both to the context but also to the building itself and the dynamic mechanisms therein.

By operating in closed cycles, circular design goes beyond the traditional linear concept of “extracting, producing, consuming and discarding”, and seeks to create more sustainable and efficient systems throughout the life cycle of a product. Through the principles of reduction, reuse, recycling and regeneration, it can minimize the environmental impact of a product from the very first stages of its life: with the choice of more sustainable, durable materials; by minimizing waste during production; by promoting reuse and repair during its use; and at the disposal phase, with the efficient recycling of materials that can be reintroduced to the production chain. The adoption of circular design has gained strength in the industry, but despite the many advances and initiatives, it is still rare to see concrete examples of its implementation.