Ricardo Azevedo

22 years into his career, Ricardo Azevedo still has a special fondness for hand drawing, because «drawing is a form of expression of searching and finding», which, when doing architecture, is looking for «an unknown future» and is «the best approach to finding the doubts of that future». And it is always with uncertainties, and creating new paths to define the configuration, that the architect, with his practice in Santo Tirso, northern Portugal, finds unexpected solutions for his projects. He likes slow and restless drawings. After all, it is in drawing that he discovers «form, light and the lightness of the matter». For the architect, the act of drawing «poetises» and «is the discourse of a project, because it is introspective, when it leads the architect to reflect on his quest, and it is communicative, when it tells its story to others». It is this story of art, architecture, communication and passion that we will reveal to you on the following pages.

Have you always dreamt about architecture? You love art and communicating through drawing. What do art and drawing have in common when translated into an architectural project?
Architecture came about from a childhood dream. I think this is common in architects. I’m no different there. I always had that dream. I think that if I hadn’t been an architect, I would be working in construction today, giving shape to what others are designing. My academic background began in Lisbon, at the Faculty of Architecture. At that time, it was still close to Chiado and it was in shared with Fine Arts. There I had my first contact with the world of architecture and I grew as a person having lived in a major city. Lisbon brought me fado and light. I returned to Porto, in search of the dream I had of graduating from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto. The famous school of Porto. I started all over again. I think this was one of my best decisions. I began from scratch, already having the knowledge of one year of learning architecture. I had a very intense academic journey, I had the privilege of having great professors, who taught me architecture, how to draw, how to think. I have to mention Sérgio Fernandez, the man who made me confront the way an architect thinks, Madalena Pinto, Nuno Lacerda, Siza Vieira. In the fourth year I went to work in the studio of Prof. Francisco Barata Fernandes. There I found the true place of architecture. The architecture that derives from critical and drawn thought. The drawing that seeks the hand that thinks. When I finished my degree I had the privilege of joining the Escola Superior Artística do Porto, where I taught Architecture for 13 years. It was there that I learnt the most about architecture and about people. The students made me grow as a man and as an architect. I met many people, I made many friendships. This was what helped me most for the architecture that I do.


You created Ricardo Azevedo Arquitecto (RAA) in 2002. What challenges have you faced over these years? And what has marked you most in your career?
I actually started in 2000, in a small studio in Gaia. It was an interesting journey. Like everyone, with ups and downs, but above all always with a mature growth in architecture. Time brings us more certainty. It develops more skills in us. Structurally, it becomes almost innate to learn to work in a team. I always take responsibility for everything, but I have discovered the opportunity to explore new paths, new perspectives in the versatility of the team. Today, the studio has 20 employees. I seek people for their character, this is the main value of a good architect, doctor, lawyer, if you like, carpenter, blacksmith... After 22 years, I am encouraged to have people of different generations, from different countries. People who have followed their path and who bring something new to the studio. We have people from Brazil, from Turkey, people who have spent part of their lives in Japan, people from different schools of architecture. I am not fixated on stereotypes. I look for difference. With them we visit other realities and the discomfort of unknown places and perspectives give us better opportunities. We discuss things. Everyone actively participates in the project.

What are your areas of specialisation? 
After 22 years I don’t consider myself a specialist in a specific programme. Architects have to combine knowledge from across the board. Fortunately, during these years, I have had the opportunity to design houses, churches, factories, schools, hotels, streets, squares, cemeteries, nursing homes, long-term care facilities... Small and large projects. I feel that after all the projects developed, any challenge is faced in a natural way, with the sum of all these years and the sum of a restless and pertinent life. Everything I see and am ends up appearing in my projects. Our physical and spiritual dimension is always present in the design of a project.
Whenever a new project appears, doubt stimulates the search for it. It is much easier when in complex programmes we know all their functional and regulatory dynamics. In this sense, I can feel the privilege of having accumulated a facilitating experience, but I tend to always make my path difficult. I never start from something I already know. I use the sum of what I have experienced, but I look for something new. I always like the places I don’t know. The project as a search for the unknown is more motivating. That is the basis of everything. Evolution always starts from accumulated knowledge, from history.

Was the fact that you are not based in a major city, such as Lisbon and Porto, ever an impediment to carrying out certain projects?
Today more than ever the place where we are doesn’t matter much. What matters is what we are, what we do, how we communicate. Being in Lisbon or Porto only improves our access to other realities. Concerts, exhibitions, this or that restaurant. This fact is easily overcome. Travelling makes up for this distance. We all make our own way. Currently I am almost always two days a week in Lisbon, the Alentejo and the Algarve. I accompany the projects and clients in a direct and personal relationship, I like to do it this way. When we do a project abroad we easily communicate through digital channels. The most extraordinary case we experienced, in terms of clients and distance, was an invitation to build a tower in Paraguay from a group of investors. This invitation corresponded to a tender that we fortunately ended up winning. The project was developed together with Nuno Bessa, a former student of mine while teaching architecture at ESAP in Porto. It is always stimulating to share the creation of projects with some people. We are more and better when we experience the irreverence of youth with the serenity of maturity. The best of two generations appears, in the confrontation of ideas, of designs.
When it all began, it didn’t seem possible to reach these territories. We have developed projects for a Spanish and a Greek group. We have done small projects for Germany and Paris. We work in Maputo and Luanda. We are always open to challenges.
An event that I will never forget was having developed the project for a tower on one of Maputo’s main avenues. We did the preliminary study, without ever having visited the place. Google helps, but we forget that understanding a place, a city, implies interacting with it, in all the human senses. I remember getting on the plane, proud of my project, rolled up in a tube. When I set foot on African soil, I could smell Africa, I was invaded by billboards painted with the Coca Cola symbol. I entered a city of avenues strewn with modernist buildings, filled by architecture with facades marked by distinctive structural designs. I realised I was carrying a project without context. I asked for an office, a place where I could work and redesign my project. It ended up belonging to the place. It found the right direction. Today, I do projects in the places I visit, I feel and only this way do I engage with the context. Sometimes in continuity, others in opposition, but always aware of the relationship.

After more than 20 years dedicated to architecture, do you, in some way, look at the first projects you did and see them as ‘inadequate’ for today’s times, or do they continue to be a portrait of your essence, your style, as an architect?
I began very early on to work with the architect Francisco Barata, while I was a student at the FAUP. Barata was my professor and invited me to his practice in my third year. The time there helped me to develop other skills that, added to the academic experience, I went on to integrate into my professional life. Life is made of experiences and I have always kept an eye on everything I have designed and built. I like to visit the work alone in some quiet moments. Before, during and after construction. The before announces the future to me, the during changes the relationships between the parts, and at that moment some points can still be redirected. My path is important, so I wouldn’t take anything away from it. If I went back I don’t know if I would change anything. I am on my path. What I seek is to do consistent architecture, with a timeless language, where the people who are going to inhabit it fit. I like revisiting the projects, years later, to understand how they have aged and I like meeting the people I have worked with.

«I had the privilege of having great professors, who taught me architecture, how to draw, how to think»

When we think of RAA, what is the trait that distinguishes and characterises you? Other people will know, for me it is difficult. If I had to find a more distinctive feature, it would perhaps be the presence of each person in my project. Those who inhabit it are very present in the form and, therefore, I don’t see equality in my projects, I see diversity. The only common parameter between them is me. The places also have an influence, but people often tell me: «I could see that this was your project». Maybe it’s not the architect’s job to know how to justify everything. There are many things that remain for general reading and interpretation.

Is there a maestro in architecture who continues to inspire you?
The first was Alvar Aalto. I knew nothing about architecture when a mathematics teacher, Santos Marques, in high school gave me his book. He said to me: «this will be your first book on architecture». Maybe that’s why that one is always present. He is an architect who is in the balance between the exaggerations, and rationalism of Le Corbusier and the organic architecture of Franck Lloyd Wright. They also inspire me. I like the contradictions of Mies, who talks about decoration and lived surrounded in an environment full of objects and books. I can’t end this without mentioning a man who was my professor and who, even today, is one of the greatest assets in national and international architecture, Álvaro Siza Vieira. I’m motivated by his relationship with place, with history, the fact that he sometimes erases himself to make the context count. I like architecture with a controlled discourse and whose communication spans time, without losing its value.

You have a taste for sharing knowledge. You taught for years. In what way was this passing on of testimony and wisdom important for you and for those who absorbed your knowledge?
I can’t tell you what was the best thing that happened during these thirteen years of my life. What I have taught or what I have learnt. The students are pertinent, curious, they ask many questions. The teacher does not know everything. I always studied to try to deliver what the students were looking for, even if it had to happen in the next class. There is an event that marked me as a teacher, several in fact, but this one I would like to highlight. I was teaching the subject of ‘Project I’. That’s where students learn the method of developing a project. From the concept to the design of the quest for solutions. In general, students are impelled to develop a process of drawing on tracing paper that they will superimpose over the previous drawing, in the expectation that the next drawing will correct the mistakes of the previous one. All eager for a long process they draw endlessly and in the beginning it is difficult to stop. I asked the students to bring an A1, opaque sheet of paper and draw any sketch during the 3-hour lesson. I just́ wanted a drawing, nothing else. I found the way to bring them back to slow thinking, to thoughtful drawing. I think that was my highlight as a teacher. Such a simple and basic thing, but it definitely changed the outcome and the world of each of these students. We live in a fast and eager society and what I wanted to leave them with was the virtue of letting time flow, mentally seizing the opportunity. Architecture is a mental process.

How do we feel and see architecture today?
Architecture adjusts to the times, cultures and civilisations. Today we run the risk of an architecture focused on image, on status. We run the risk of disconnection. Architects have the possibility of leading the client in a quest for a home that is a response to the way of life. The house should be the stage, not the show itself. It should provide the right place to live, not condition the way we live. It should be a stimulus. The architect tells a story in the spaces he designs. He provides a relationship with those who inhabit it and it should be there that we find fulfilment, because we can offer others the right place to work, sleep, eat, play, not in a functionalist, but in an inspiring way. We must counter an image-focused architecture in favour of a comfortable architecture, where the human experience is improved. Light is essential in this work. It dematerialises the weight of matter, giving it the dimension of meaning.

Which projects would you highlight from your portfolio?
It is not easy to choose a project. Perhaps I would choose the Santo Adrião church. Two eras live in this project. We respect the past, redesigning a cloister that separates the new from the old. The form is supported by the geometry of classical design, which obeys the rules of the square and the golden rectangle. The eras do not touch, they connect through a glass gap. I think this project defines me as a person and an architect. I always value the past, leaning on it the direction for the future. I respect time, I appreciate its extraordinary slowness. A contradiction in terms these days.

«The house should be the stage, not the show itself. It should provide the right place to live, not condition how you live»

These last two years of the pandemic had an impact on the architecture market. And on your studio?
Yes. Unexpectedly they brought the team a stronger connection, more communication, more discussion, more time to develop the projects. Less meetings and more concentration. Some meetings that everyone felt were unnecessary were cut. New notions of distance and proximity were introduced. New markets have opened. Today’s market is more global. New clients look for what they want, not what is close to them. Everything is within our reach and so this time, these two years have greatly transformed the type of client that is looking for us. They are people who know what they want, who identify with the particularity of our projects and want what they need. This fact has changed the world of architects. No longer does ‘the friend who did my house’ prevail, but, in truth, what we are and what we do and the affinity we establish with those who come to us. The world and its geography are getting smaller and smaller. We are living a digital rapprochement.

The real estate and construction market has been growing at a rapid pace. A large part of these investments comes from funds, foreign investment and tourism. Where can we identify the greatest potential for the sector’s growth in Portugal?
Portugal has been on the map for national and foreign investors in recent years. Climatically we are an opportunity, we have an enviable level of security. We have an endless sea; we are only a few hours away from any European city. We are attractive because we have regional and local characteristics that please those who live there. We have investment related costs with an excellent margin of return. We have a market for the product. We are attractive because we offer very significant margins of return. I won’t give any figures because I would run the risk of speaking out of context, but financially, real estate investment continues to lead the market. Strategic investment in certain geographies is guaranteed because land has run out. This is where the architect comes in again, reinventing the way of building and rebuilding. If the land is running out we have to find other possibilities, in other cities around the world it is common to change the heights and develop construction on the existing buildings.

In your opinion, does the country need its spaces/its cities to be rehabilitated? And what role should the architect play in these processes?
Yes. Cities are definitely organisms in constant transformation. The architect is charged with the strategic sensitivity to trigger the right development. Opportunity is always present. Sometimes we don’t perceive it. The architect sees it first. Urban transformation can take place in different ways. On one hand, we have the plans and the slow consequence of their transformation, always sustained by actions, with strong economic impact and slow transformation. On the other, we have the possibility to generate urban and consequently social transformation through certain architectural operations. Remember what happened in Bilbao. The connotation of a rundown city was overcome through the construction of iconic buildings that motivated a rapid urban and social transformation.  This is the model I am closest to and work with. Rupture can motivate a more consequential transformation. The building that we designed at the entrance of Santo Tirso intends to have this transformation value, a degraded identity was erased and an urban sculpture that can be seen as a focal point from different points of the city was re-erected, generating and motivating another relationship of man with the city. In the reconstructions we undertake, we also seek this urban transformation that integrates times and promotes a more sustained city. It is the architect’s role to inspire models of urban transformation and ways of life.

«I particularly like to see materials from demolition or scrap metal reused in our reconstructions or constructions» 

It is unavoidable to not talk about sustainability nowadays. Not only from the point of view of energy, but also in environmental and social terms. How does RAA contribute to this aim?
We are aware of that. I think it is increasingly global. We are looking for new construction methodologies that are more environmentally friendly. We have developed more sustainable projects, constructions with wooden structures, we look for mixed systems and we promote the reduction of CO2 in the process. We recycle. Nothing is lost, everything can be reused. We choose local materials. I think these are the strongest points of our contribution to sustainability. I particularly like to see materials from demolition or scrap metal reused in our reconstructions or constructions.

What are you like as a person outside work?
I don't think I’m ever out of work or in it. An architect never stops thinking about the projects he is developing. Our life always revolves around our projects. It is an intrinsic relationship. We find answers to our quest in everything. I like people, music, travelling. I like art. I like my family, I complete myself in my family, I am happy at their side. I get inspiration from my family.