INTRODUCTION

Porto Academy is the result of an enormous passion for architecture as a discipline. It is a manifesto of pluralism and opportunity based on close tuition from a diverse range of architects, artists and curators. It is an alternative educational experience, unburdened by established rules or dogmas, where students learn first hand from the singular visions of practice exemplified by invited tutors.
We admire the figures that dream about architecture, who build, study and promote it. We believe that practice – as an exercise of the architect’s profession – is central to the future of the discipline. Porto Academy was founded to push forward this vision and the architects with whom it is shared.
Porto Academy promotes an exhaustive program lived with an enormous intensity. It is an experience that involves lectures, visits to important architectural sites, classes, exhibitions and the creation of publications. While experiencing living in a new city, students get to know people from very heterogeneous backgrounds with whom one will almost certainly generate productive
discussions and build new friendships.
Porto Academy has created a truly global community of students and practitioners over the past years. Around 1700 participants from 87 different nationalities have participated in the Porto Academy programs. Our invited lecturers and guests have come from a wide range of origins and fields of action with more than 150 invited guests from 26 different nationalities.
The academy proposes a brief but powerful cultural and educational experience in dialogue with ambitious and globally relevant architects during which time, one lives with a passion for the discipline and an intellectual freedom of enduring value. Every guest is invited to freely explore a thematic and develop work with their own specific and unique methodology.
Porto Academy aims to dilute borders and bring people together to the essence of what architecture is. More than ever, it is a time to meet, to physically experience space and to establish social
and fruitful connections.
To us, Porto Academy is a compliment to the prevalent idea of school.

FOUNDING DIRECTORS

Amélia

Amélia Brandão Costa studied architecture at Universidade Lusíada do Porto. She also studied at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart and Design at Domus Academy in Milano. She has a post-graduation in Real Estate Management from Instituto de Artes e Ciências do Porto.
Before establishing her own office in 2007 with Rodrigo da Costa Lima she learned from João Pedro Serôdio, Isabel Furtado, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
Her works and writings have been awarded, published, and presented in lectures and exhibitions. She is founder and editor of Indexnewspaper - which makes part of MOMA NY Library Collection - and has been awarded and exhibited worldwide. She published several articles and edited many books. She was also correspondent of the Swiss architecture magazine Faces.
She has been guest critic, lecturer and jury at different architecture schools such as Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Architectural Association, Akademie der Bildenden Künst München, École Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne, ETH Zürich, FAUP, KU Leuven, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Miami School of Architecture, Princeton University School of Architecture, Royal College of Art and Yale School of Architecture.
Amélia is Founding Director of Porto Academy.
She is Member of the Portuguese Architects Association Board since 2020.

Rodrigo

Rodrigo da Costa Lima studied architecture at Universidade Lusíada do Porto.
Before establishing his own office in 2007 with Amélia Brandão Costa, he learned from João Pedro Serôdio, Isabel Furtado, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
His works and writings have been published and presented in lectures and exhibitions. He is founder and editor of Indexnewspaper - which makes part of MOMA NY Library Collection - and has been awarded and exhibited worldwide. He published several articles and edited many books.
He has been guest critic, lecturer and jury at different architecture schools worldwide such as Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Architectural Association, Akademie der Bildenden Künst München, École Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne, ETH Zürich, FAUP, KU Leuven, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Miami School of Architecture, Princeton University School of Architecture, Royal College of Art and Yale School of Architecture.
Rodrigo is Founding Director of Porto Academy.



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