Sustainable architecture and restoration by Gloria Cabral

(September 2025) | Brazilian-Paraguayan architect Gloria Cabral will be one of the guest speakers in the Building, Dwelling, Thinking cultural programme at Cersaie 2025 with a conference to be held on Wednesday 24 September at 2.30 p.m. in The Square in the Bologna Exhibition Centre.

Her work reflects a profound sensitivity to space and a commitment to resource efficiency, minimising waste and using the knowledge deriving from Paraguayan craftsmanship to build with clay bricks and roof tiles. Her projects respond to real needs and are deeply rooted in the geography of their sites, resulting in inventive forms of architecture based on the recovery of simple materials. This approach focuses on the creative use of local materials, finding value in debris and demonstrating how design can generate architectural, historical and social structures for a reinvented future, even in the absence of adequate resources. By placing memory and culture at the centre of collective construction, her practice is associated with a non-extractive architecture that promotes sustainable, resource-conscious ways of building.

For 17 years (2003-2020), Cabral was a partner in the practice Gabinete de Arquitectura. In 2014 she was selected by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor as his protégée, following an international search for talented young professionals conducted under the Rolex Arts Initiative 2014-2015. She now runs her own studio in Laguna, in the state of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil.

Her many awards include: first prize in the Rehabilitation and Recycling category at the Pan-American Biennial in 2010 for her work as project manager of the Teleton Children’s Rehabilitation Centre; the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016, shared with her partners, for best participant in the International Exhibition; the Moira Gemmill Prize from The Architectural Review and The Architects’ Journal in 2018. In 2021 she received an honorary degree from the National University of Asunción and won the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, organised by the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (France).

Debris of History, Matters of Memory by Gloria Cabral and Sammy Baloji. 2023. Photo: Federico Cairoli

Participants in this conference are entitled to 2 professional educational credits for architects. Attendance at the exhibition itself qualifies for a further educational credit, which can be obtained by providing self-certification and attaching a copy of the entrance ticket.