Born in Brazil and educated in Paraguay, Gloria Cabral is an architect who early on learned that home can be many places—or none at all. Guided by a comprehensive understanding of the geography, culture, and social conditions of the places she designs, she has left her mark on buildings and artistic installations constructed in various locations, from Assumption to Venice.
Besides her interest in the specificities of the places where she operates, Gloria focuses on resource economy and material reuse — a trending theme that Gloria has championed for over fifteen years. We had the opportunity to speak with the architect about her experiences in Paraguay and Brazil, some of her works involving recycled brick, and her insights into architecture and sustainability.
Romullo Baratto (ArchDaily): Until recently, I did not know you were Brazilian. I always thought you were Paraguayan. I would like to hear about your childhood in these two countries.
Gloria Cabral: My parents are Paraguayans, and they came to work in São Paulo. They already had two children at the time, but my younger sister and I were born in São Paulo. We lived on Bela Cintra Street, right in the center. Last year, I visited the building where we lived. It's still there, small and beautiful. It's curious how, upon visiting, I realized that it is actually much smaller than the image I had in my memory.
In my childhood, we spent a lot of time at MASP and Ibirapuera Park. My mother loved Ibirapuera and even studied landscaping there with Burle Marx. When I was six, we returned to Paraguay, and at the age of nine, I joined the Colegio Experimental Paraguay-Brasil, designed by Affonso Eduardo Reidy. That was my journey from one marvelous building to another. I completed my entire elementary education in that building and was fascinated by those concrete structures. I knew they were not just for providing shade. It was great to walk under those beams during recess.
RB: In interviews, you often mention that you are neither from here nor there, and your father used to say you're a citizen of the world. This brings to mind the word "desterrar" (to be unrooted or without land). Perhaps you are a kind of unrooted person or, even more, someone with many "lands"—many places to call home. This seems an essential aspect of your personal story. How has this influenced how you perceive and practice architecture, a discipline so deeply connected to a sense of place?
GC: Interestingly, I find myself in situations where people do not know if I am Paraguayan or Brazilian. But now, I truly feel I belong to both places. I have this fondness for putting down roots wherever I go. For feeling like I belong to the local culture. For taking off my shoes and sensing the energy of the place.
I enjoy sensing and understanding how people live in each location. Once this is comprehended, I try to envision how to enhance these spaces. That is our tool – how we can improve people's quality of life by changing scales and altering the proportions of spaces. I do not believe there is only one way to think about architecture. There are thousands of approaches for each situation.
When someone commissions a project, be it for an office, a house, or anything else, understanding the context and the way people live enables us to envision improvements. By grasping the unique dynamics of the place, we can always find ways to enhance it not just for the client, but for everyone around them. And what works here might be entirely different in Stockholm, for example. But I can work both here and in Stockholm with bricks and demolition materials. Creating shade in a place with only 6 hours of sunlight in winter does not make much sense. Designing a place that offers shelter and protection with the same materials, that's when it starts to make sense.
RB: You started designing in Paraguay. How did the landscapes there influence your projects?
GC: In Paraguay, after finishing high school, I was not sure if I would study architecture, medicine, or something related to mathematics. I chose architecture, perhaps influenced by my mother. Initially, the university seemed trivial, concerned only with aesthetics and what was trendy at that moment. When I realized that we could bring about change through architecture, that it is our tool for making the societal transformations we desire, that's when I truly started to enjoy the profession. I was on the verge of quitting the course when I discovered the work of Gabinete de Arquitectura. Understanding how we could change society through our discipline made me realize that this was what I wanted to do.
One characteristic of Paraguay's landscape is that temperatures can reach almost 50ºC. So, my practice revolved around figuring out how to create architecture that does not rely heavily on air conditioning. At Gabinete de Arquitectura, our research heavily focuses on creating shading structures to shield us from the sun — a crucial aspect that has always held great value in Paraguay. The challenge now is dealing with extreme heat in places not accustomed to such temperatures. It has become a global necessity: architecture that is not heavily dependent on air conditioning, incorporating passive comfort strategies.
I believe everything begins with the wisdom of a place. However, when you not only understand what to do but also why you're doing it, wisdom transforms into adaptable knowledge applicable to any region.
RB: I have realized that your approach to architecture extends beyond conventional aspects of geography like territory, topography, biomes, and climate. Your comprehensive view of geography also embraces the social aspect. This is evident in the practices at Gabinete de Arquitectura, where there's a distinct interest in the materiality of brick, particularly due to its connection with Paraguayan culture. In Latin America, characterized by economic scarcity, it seems there is an expansion in the understanding of the landscape that goes beyond mere territory considerations to encompass social and economic spheres.
GC: Certainly! For example, when clients approached Gabinete, we aimed to maximize the built area within the available budget. A good example is the rehabilitation project for Teletón: the funds available would cover only a third of the required area, and there was a long waiting list of children in need. I knew that if we could lower the cost per square meter, we could offer more built space and provide all the necessary services, such as physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, and speech therapy.
If we didn't construct the entire necessary area, the children would have to wait until the following year to receive certain treatments. That was the pressure the project was under.
Doing this required a significant planning effort to reuse all the demolished bricks. However, it was crucial to ensure that reusing them did not incur an additional cost in the budget. When I talk about economic issues, it is not a matter of finances. It is about energy savings. If we were to reuse the bricks in the Teletón project, we would have to clean the demolition bricks and then prefabricate the closure modules again, for instance. At that time, bricks were inexpensive in Paraguay, so the cost of buying new bricks, breaking them, and using them, or taking demolition bricks, breaking them, sorting them, and using them was practically the same.
However, I knew we would save on the energy spent in producing new bricks and allocate about 65% of the budget to labor, instead of new materials, by using demolition bricks. This would involve more work and more people on the construction site, resulting in less embodied energy. It also meant more complications, especially when dealing with the inherent challenges of working with people. Certainly, it was easier to call a supplier and order new bricks than to plan and calculate everything that reuse entailed.
We were also going against all members of the Foundation's Board, who wanted to build quickly. It required calculating how many people we needed to hire to avoid exceeding the deadline and not spending more money. In the office, this meant a lot more work. The same happened with the glass we used, all from rejected tempered glass with flaws. By purchasing these glasses and using them creatively in the openings, we reduced glass expenses to one-fifth, and with that savings alone, we managed to build an additional 300 square meters. That was the challenge: how to do more with less.
RB: I immediately made a connection with your indecision between architecture and mathematics. It seems your approach to architecture is closely intertwined with mathematics, calculations, and spreadsheets. A pragmatic approach that involves solving a complex puzzle.
GC: When I joined Gabinete, we spent more time working on Excel spreadsheets than on actual drawings, seeking ways to cut the budget. The spreadsheet was crucial. It is not just mathematics; it is logic. We exchanged this for that and opted for this glass instead of that one...
RB: Yet, it is socially and economically responsible, and using the word everyone employs, sustainable. In the end, it is about saving resources. It is a logical exercise, as you mentioned, to do more with less.
GC: Exactly. When I started giving lectures in 2008, our projects were seen as picturesque. A novelty, something unusual. Now, people call me because they need to learn new ways of building. Especially in Europe, where there are already many laws in this regard, they are seeking examples and different ways of practicing architecture. The questions are all practical. "How did you do this?" "How do you work with bricks in this way?" "Is it possible to do it with wood?" These questions are frequent. They indicate an urgent interest in reusing materials that would have been discarded and turned into waste before.
For me, the idea of disposal, of waste, shouldn't exist. It's incongruent with the notion of sustainability. Everything has to be part of the cycle. We are discriminating against a material, setting it aside, but it's not to the side; it's right there.
RB: This material will be somewhere on the planet...
GC: Certainly. I am starting a research project with an artist here in Santa Catarina who works with discarded fishing nets. She began weaving and creating sculptures with these nets, which are usually thrown into the sea. A single boat can have about 30 of these nets. I am exploring how they can be used in the construction of prefabricated elements. In other words, it is about using what we have around us. Here, perhaps it is not bricks but fishing nets — it is essential to observe the specificities of the place.
It is clear that, in other situations, it will be necessary to produce new materials. There is no good or bad material. There are no villains. The material itself is not bad. Concrete is not bad. Concrete is great for many things. But we need to think about the best way to use it. If we prioritize demolition materials, the use of concrete becomes a fraction of what would be initially required. Concrete remains great for many things, but we need to find the right equation and the relevance of using a particular material in different contexts.
RB: Speaking of waste and unconventional materials in construction, I read that you are also working with biomaterials. Can you talk about that?
GC: I conduct research when invited to teach at universities. In Panama, Bolivia, Hong Kong, and Paraguay, I guided students to use materials that closed the cycle. We worked with mycelium, algae, cork, bioconcrete, translucent wood, and more. The most interesting part is that, typically, these students continue their research later on. It's a new universe that needs to be explored.
It is not just about stopping the production of materials that do not close the cycle but using traditional materials combined with new ones to close the loop. The idea of waste needs to disappear from our minds.
RB: Parece que esse é o único caminho possível para a arquitetura — e a sociedade — encontrar um equilíbrio. Ainda sobre reuso, gostaria de ouvir você falar sobre seu projeto na última Bienal de Arquitetura de Veneza: um muro, que na verdade é uma tapeçaria, feita com resíduos de vidro e tijolo do próprio local.
GC: I participated in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative between 2014 and 2015, where I was a protégé of Peter Zumthor. The program has just completed twenty years, and to encourage the protégés — currently numbering more than sixty — Rolex invites them to collaborate on projects that combine their areas of interest.
That is how I began working with the artist Sammy Baloji, whose practice aims to highlight African roots in artistic works in Europe. When we started discussing our collaborative project, he was creating a sculpture in Belgium using bricks produced from material sourced from mining exploration. I was interested in brick production using industrial waste, so we decided to combine our research in the project Debris of History, Matters of Memory.
When Sammy expressed the desire to create a tapestry, I suggested using demolition bricks. We collaborated with the art historian Cécile Fromont and the activist architects' group Mutaforma in Venice. I chose to be involved in the entire process, not just hiring a construction company. We built the wall with local bricks, glass from the region, and a brick box from Belgium with Sammy's material. The variety of colors in the Belgian bricks was a crucial part of the project. When I see people touching the wall, taking pictures of the glass that allows light to pass through, I sense the energy the tapestry conveys.
RB: Brick and tapestry share the same tactile nature: we perceive both with our hands. This aspect of the process you mentioned is evident in the presentation. The scaffolding was kept, right?
GC: No regulation in Italy allows the construction of a wall with a width of 5 cm and a height of 4.5 meters using demolition material.
RB: Did the organization have reservations about removing the scaffolding?
GC: Is it impossible to obtain approval from the relevant authorities and leave the wall unsupported? We assembled the scaffolding as we built, securing props for support and wire ties to maintain compression and prevent the wall from collapsing. Since it was a laboratory, we decided to leave the scaffolding after completion.
RB: In this conversation, we have talked about Paraguay and Venice, and now I would like to know why you returned to Brazil — and why Guarda do Embaú in Santa Catarina.
GC: For several reasons. Firstly, my sister moved to Florianópolis, which is nearby, 15 years ago. I came here to be closer to her and my nieces. Another reason is my desire to be surrounded by nature. Just yesterday morning, I encountered a lizard in my backyard. Occasionally, amid my meetings, a large blue bird perches on my window and begins to sing. I only bought one pair of shoes during the 3 years I lived here. I avoid using air conditioning, prefer walking everywhere, and only use the car once a week. Such experiences are uncommon in the midst of a city.
What captivates me here is the slow pace. I have realized that skipping work on a Wednesday won't be the end of me; in fact, it's quite the opposite. I dedicate Mondays and Tuesdays to work, reserving Wednesdays for learning something new—whatever it might be. Whether delving into understanding tensions or exploring new structures, Wednesday is my day. If I am keen on picking up a new language, Wednesday is the day for that. Dancing or singing? Wednesday is when I dive into those pursuits. I return to work on Thursday and Friday. Here, I find relaxation, breathe fresh air, and enjoy a good night's sleep.
We need to reflect on how we got to this point. At what moment did humanity enter this cycle? The pandemic revealed to us that it is not necessary (to work every day) and that we can stop at any moment, but we are forgetting it, missing the opportunity to learn something from that period.
For a long time in Paraguay, I used to say, "We should build in this or that way," but every day I would get into my air-conditioned car, drive to the office with air conditioning, and work all day. Twelve hours later, I would leave in my car and return home, turn on the air conditioning, and sleep to do the same thing the next day. Not anymore. If the day is beautiful, I close everything and enjoy the nice day. And when I have a lot to do, I work on Sundays, no problem. But the next day, I rest.
RB: It seems like a worldview quite aligned with the circularity you mentioned earlier. It's good that this came towards the end because it appears that you have not only learned a lot from the landscape of Paraguay but also the landscape of Guarda do Embaú. Today is Wednesday, and I've learned quite a bit too.
GC: It is an interview, a moment of learning together.
