Final thesis of the Architecture course at Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto.

Stone Translucent Verticalities is an architectural sculpture that highlights the potentialities of stone/marble digital design and fabrication combined with artificial lighting. The main theme of the design is the relationship between sculpted lithic materials and translucency: in fact, by reducing thethickness of the stone at certain points, light can pass through the matter and allows […]
Architectural models are usually very good at representing space and rather bad at representing time. We can model a wall, a roof or an entire building in detail, but it is much harder to ask a simple historical question: what existed here in 1700? Historical Time is a small experimental plug-in I developed for Rhino […]
The Post-Tensioned Stereotomic Arch explores how natural stone can be reintroduced into contemporary construction through a combination of historical stereotomic principles and digital design workflows. At a time when reinforced concrete and steel remain major contributors to global carbon emissions, the project investigates compression-based structural systems that rely on low-impact materials with minimal transformation. Stone, […]
Recent developments in digital design and fabrication tools have led architects and researchers to renew the interest in stereotomy. This interest converges with a growing ecological and economical conscience that matches classic stereotomy raw material needs: compression resistance materials. However, material resources or prefabrication time are still major counterparts for the adoption of this construction […]
Poster presented in the Nexus 2012 – Relationships Between Architecture and Mathematics. This presentation was about the relation of a complex geometry with constructive constraints.
A reusable mold methodology to the production of customized voussoirs using HoloLens Mass customizing of building components allows new conditions to explore aesthetic and sustainability in architecture. However, such possibilities tend to require the use of expensive and heavy digital fabrication machinery, which is mostly available in the most regions on the planet. In this […]
Pick Grasshopper components directly from their preview geometry in the Rhino viewport. About GHPick GHPick provides reverse selection between the Rhino viewport and Grasshopper. In large Grasshopper definitions, finding which component is responsible for a particular piece of preview geometry can mean searching across a large canvas. GHPick reverses that workflow: start from the geometry […]
The School of Architecture of Aarhus organizes the HARD CO(u)R(s)E DIGITAL, a set of workshops focused in digital technologies in a pre-holiday format. The key factors in the CorkVault workshop were the use of ICB (Insulation Cork Board), a 5-axis waterjet cutter and Kangaroo along with Grasshopper, so that a full-scale pavillion could be built. […]
In June 2020 I defended my PhD thesis entitled “Reconstruction of a Stereotomy – for a multi-semantic stereotomic approach”. The PDF document has Open Access and can be download in Universidade do Porto website here. https://sigarra.up.pt/faup/pt/NOTICIAS_GERAL.VER_NOTICIA?p_nr=69842 Abstract: Stereotomy is the classic body of knowledge which deals with stonecutting for building arch like structures. The interest […]
This paper focuses on the development of a BIM (Building Information Modeling) tool for stereotomic design, aiming to create a bridge between academic research and practical implementation of stereotomy in the construction sector. The creation of a stereotomic BIM tool enhances the use of compressive materials within funicular shapes to minimize reliance on carbon-intensive steel-reinforced […]
All content © Copyright 2026 by Pedro de Azambuja Varela.
Subscribe to RSS Feed