João Álvaro RochaJoão Álvaro Rocha was born in Viana do Castelo, on the north coast of Portugal, on January 10, 1959, and died in Porto on September 13, 2014. Between 1977 and 1982 he completed the Course of Architecture in the Superior School of Fine Arts in Oporto,surpassing the Final Test for obtaining the degree in 1986. He began his professional activity in 1982. Between 1983 and 1990 he collaborated with the office of the architects Jorge Guimarães Gigante and Francisco Melo, being responsible for the elaboration of several projects and the assistance to works. From 1990 until 1995 he worked with the architect José Manuel Gigante, with whom he shared the authorship of several projects. In 1996 he opened his own office, João Álvaro Rocha - Arquitectos, Lda. Throughout his career he has carried out an intense teaching activity, begun in 1988/89, in the Course of Architecture of the Superior Artistic School of Oporto. From 1990 to 2001 he taught at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto and gave lectures at the École d'Architecture in Clermont-Ferrand (France, 1989/90) at the School of Architecture of the International University of Catalonia - Barcelona, Spain, 1998/99), at the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra - Pamplona (Spain, 1998) and the Department of Architecture at Cornell University - New York (United States of America, 2000). His work has been awarded with several prizes, including the National Prize for Architecture - First Works - 1993, awarded by the Association of Portuguese Architects. AIA CE DESIGN AWARD - 2001, awarded by the AIA - American Institute of Architects, being a finalist of the Iberfad / Alejandro de la Sota Awards, Barcelona, in 1996, 2000 and 2002, and the VI Mies van der Rohe Award for European Prize Architecture, Barcelona, 1999. He was also awarded in the Ideas Competition on the experiences of change and the types of future of Social Housing and Housing Official Protection, of the Higher Council of Colleges of Architects of Spain, in 2003. Read More Read Less
