'Zühlke and MPS are the new tenants of D.M2'

This interview was published in the architectural supplement TRAÇO in September.

Where do you get this reverence for using wood in your projects? "

Today there is a lot of talk about sustainability and, in fact, wood is one of the most interesting and important renewable materials. In Portugal, there has always been a certain stigma about the use of wood because of thermal amplitudes and maintenance. Although I believe that this is often not due to the use of wood, but to the misuse of it. So I started investing in knowledge about wood construction from the beginning. We did a project in Pedras Salgadas with eco houses and "snake" houses. We also used cryptomeria in a project in Longrove. We have''self-supplied, there will always be a small generator for such occasions, as they say, for the holidays. So we decided to build it out of CLT.

Was it an easy decision to make?

I have always advocated this technology, and time has proven me right. Back then, it was a little-known technology in Portugal, and if I spoke to a structural engineer, it felt like I was taking bread from his mouth because he didn't know how to do the calculations. If I talked to the contractor, he was completely dismissive of the decision because he was making cost comparisons that were too simple. That is, if you only compare the cost of CLT to more traditional construction, it may be more expensive to build. But that is not the true problem.

What is the true''problem?

Building with CLT allows for many things. First of all, it is dry construction, which drastically reduces the number of operations on the construction site. The panels are already cut and everything is done to the millimeter. It is a precise and very efficient assembly with a minimum number of people on site. It must be recognized that Portugal now, and not only in construction, has a serious problem with hiring qualified personnel.

The CLT technology is a new age technology, because it allows a significant increase in pre-production on the construction site, better control of costs and better results in final construction costs and lead times.

It has a number of additional benefits. For example, it is often talked about''fire hazard, and in this aspect CLT is also an advantage because laminated, cross-laminated and glued wood does not burn, it is carbonized, which significantly reduces the risk of fire. It also greatly improves the seismic safety of the building because it is a very flexible material and has better strength. In terms of comfort, wood improves acoustic and thermal comfort.

But don't you think the situation is evolving towards more use of CLT and prefabrication in construction in general?

Definitely. Companies today are starting to realize the benefits, learn and get involved. There are a lot of engineers being trained now who have knowledge of calculations, which is fundamental as''Wood construction as we know it doesn't allow for large stock factors. I am absolutely sure that the path is going towards prefabrication, whether it is prefabrication using CLT or other technologies, there are more than 100 different prefabrication technologies in the world. This is the way construction in Portugal will go and architects will have to get used to working with other materials and solutions than concrete and bricks.

Is education a concern for your team?

Finitely! We have had this concern for a very long time. Sustainability cannot be an empty word or a cliché. Sustainability is something real. And it's very important that we, as architects, understand what we're carrying''responsibility in this matter. It is a pity that we see a great detachment of our rulers from the problems of architecture, and that we do not hear our order in moments of great fires or floods, moments that are ultimately the result of bad planning and bad town planning. Undoubtedly we will have to go in the direction of pre-production; that is a matter of which I have no doubt.

In addition, we are developing a number of projects in this area, which makes us work in a new way in our studio, in a different way than a few years ago. Today, the entire studio works in BIM, and we are looking for engineering teams to work with us in this format because the design has to be very precise. But that requires that the construction' representatives'The industry has been able to pay architects what they should be paid so they can develop good designs. We don't participate in public tenders, except in extreme cases, because they pay terribly badly and then the teams that win are undertrained, they have poorly developed designs and are full of uncertainties, leading to large deviations in construction and final investment values. There are no miracles. The only way to reduce construction costs is to go the pre-production route rather than demanding that architects who are at the top of the chain do "cheap" because that "cheapness" then comes at a high cost.

In your current projects, are you using CLT again?

At the moment''it is still difficult for us to convince our clients, our developers, that CLT is a good solution, but we are confident that in the next two or three years we will have several thousand square meters built using this technology. I have no doubt, we are preparing several projects in this area.

You started with Casa 3000. Would you change anything about your first experience with CLT?

I wouldn't change anything. It's a project we're very proud of, like all our projects. We don't look back, we look forward. Our passion is the project we have next, the others remain history. We try to do all projects at the highest level, but some of them turn out worse. However, in recent years I've had the good fortune to rectify the situation. It's very important for us to look into''past and not be ashamed of what we contribute to the landscape. I often say that we architects are the custodians of the landscape. We don't have one client, we have multiple clients. We are invited by the client who pays us, we are controlled by the city government, often badly, and badly because of the ignorance of the technicians themselves who are afraid to evaluate a project and support good projects because of ignorance, and we have another invisible client, which is all the people who have to live with what we do and build in the landscape. So for me, the biggest rewards are the people who approach me on the street to thank me because the neighborhood has a different smell [in connection with the Casa das Fragâncias project, on do Patrocínio Street] or in Pedras Salgadas because we brought life back into''this neighborhood. These are the biggest rewards for us, they make our profession a Great Profession.

Is the use of CLT or wood in general changing the way we design?

Wood has become the raw material we work with, and it doesn't impose restrictions on our creativity. We don't feel constrained by the fact that we're drawing from a material that feels very rigid. It's part of the analysis, part of the process. There is a great rational rationale in all of our projects. Nothing happens by chance. In Casa 3000, which may seem like a joke, nothing that is there happened by accident. I have a great distrust of engineers' projects today because engineers do everything by the book and they don't look at the DNA of things like we architects do. И''when it came to a house built entirely out of CLT and completely self-sufficient, my first concern was to talk to the University of Aveiro to make sure that they monitor and control all the specialization projects to make sure that what is being designed is really right and works. And we rely a lot on university support to make sure that what we do is done right.

Today we talk about sustainability, but we're also seeing glass buildings popping up. I was in Aveiro recently and I was struck by the fact that the new architecture in Aveiro is all black...

They talk about sustainability but don't build sustainably? Beauty is privileged, but rational decisions must be made before that. They always say