(“Text as taken from the website”)
Arch. José Carlos Nunes de Oliveira
He was part of Álvaro Siza Vieira’s team from 2000 to 2021, where he was responsible for different projects and works, part of them in collaboration with Arch. Eduardo Souto Moura. Currently dedicated to the activity of author, he focuses his research on landscape design, architecture, and everyday objects. He continues to maintain some projects in co-authorship with Álvaro Siza and Arenas y Asociados.
He is a regional adviser at the Asia Designer Communication Platform and a visiting professor in the Master in Architecture and Design (March) at the Universidad Europea de Valencia since 2015 and at the Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo at the Universidad de Belgrano (2020). He is frequently invited as a visiting lecturer to architecture conferences, workshops, and exhibitions at various national and international universities and institutions, including the 2019 International Architecture Biennale of Buenos Aires.
He graduated in 1998 at ESAP, under the supervision of Arq. Nuno Mateus (ARX Portugal, Lisbon). In 1996 he designed his first house, which he built 4 years later, and began his professional activity. Between 1998 and 2000, he worked with the architect Paulo Costa and collaborated with the architect Jorge Teixeira de Sousa. In 2001 he officially founded his office, NOARQ, in Porto. Alongside his collaboration with the architect Siza and his activity, in 2003, together with his parents, he founded B.LOFT, a shop for interior design and designer furniture. In the same year, he obtained the Advanced Studies Diploma in the course of his PhD at the University of Valladolid. Due to the intense project activity, in 2002 he interrupted his doctoral thesis.
Actively engaged in some national and international architecture competitions, his work has earned numerous awards and distinctions. NOARQ’s practice has been documented in two international monographs (UzinaBooks and TC Cuadernos), as well as in two project-specific publications (Halo, in Vigo, by AMAG, and Trofa City Hall, by UzinaBooks). The studio’s work has been extensively featured in both print and digital media, nationally and internationally, across specialized architectural publications.
Practice Ideology
The office bases its practice on attention, reflection, and response. The response is sustained by realism because it is naturally critical; it is tolerant because it is creative; it is courageous and hard because it operates on the limits. The practice is committed to time and space, interrogation, inclusion, and doubt.
NOARQ is the name of a willingness to do and think by hand. Since 1998, the studio has evolved into an area of research, creation, and production by drawing from the land, architecture, and everyday objects. Today it is located in Trofa, but it still maintains its roots in Porto.
