After graduating from the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio and gaining professional experience in the offices of Jan Kinsbergen and Pascal Flammer, João Lourenço dos Santos and Marija Urbaitė founded URBAITE studio in Zurich. Through their research and professional practice, they explore the tensions and contradictions inherent in the field of architecture. Their current focus is on creating adaptable buildings where space and structure are intricately intertwined, designing educational and office projects in neighbourhoods that lack a distinct identity

Compact school in Zurich. 2025. Open competition. Landscape architecture: Zeno Zanderigo. Structure: dsp Ingenieure + Planer. Building Technology: Amstein Walthert. Acoustics, building physics, Sustainability: Raumanzug GmbH. Renderings: Olivier Campagne. Reference image credits: Outdoor school, Suresnes, 1935, Le Musée d‘histoire Urbaine et Sociale de Suresnes, Paris. This school is conceived as a dynamic and adaptable learning environment, where spatial flexibility supports evolving educational needs. The project balances compactness with openness, creating a structure that is both efficient and inviting. At its core is a clear spatial organization that fosters fluid movement, interaction, and adaptability. The school is structured around a compact ring that accommodates classrooms, enclosing a central volume that houses the auditorium, sports halls, and music rooms. This interplay between the outer ring and the inner core generates diverse spatial situations, enabling different modes of learning, collaboration, and social engagement. Generous circulation spaces, including wide staircases and multi-level connections, encourage spontaneous encounters while ensuring efficient navigation throughout the building. The building’s form—a four-sided polygon—reinforces its identity as a public institution while maintaining a balanced relationship with its environment. Its integration into the landscape minimizes land use, preserves sightlines, and enhances biodiversity, ensuring a thoughtful coexistence with its surroundings. By rethinking the traditional school typology, the this school establishes a precedent for resilient and future-oriented educational infrastructure. Its spatial and structural flexibility allows it to evolve alongside pedagogical and technological advancements, ensuring its long-term relevance as a place for learning, collaboration, and community engagement.

Climate tower for the Brunnenhof school extension in Zurich. 2024-2030. Open competition – 1th prize. Landscape architecture: Michel Frey Landschaftsarchitekten GmbH. Timber structure: PIRMIN JUNG Schweiz AG. Structure: dsp Ingenieure + Planer AG. Building Technology: Amstein Walthert. Acoustics, building physics, Sustainability: Raumanzug GmbH. Renderings: Olivier Campagne. Reference image credits: Outdoor school, Suresnes, 1935, Le Musée d‘histoire Urbaine et Sociale de Suresnes, Paris. The Zurich Brunnenhof School, housed in the former Swiss Radio Studio, will be extended under strict guidelines to meet the Net Zero goal. The new construction, entirely made of timber, is arranged as a stack of volumes without a basement. It includes two classroom clusters, multi-purpose rooms, two sports halls, and a rooftop outdoor sports area. The compact, 30-meter-high tower forms an urban ensemble with the surroundings, particularly complementing the heritage-protected 1970s building by Max Bill. This design creates a new address on Hofwiesenstrasse, where an expressive core with vertical accesses defines an additional school entrance. The design extends the limited area available for outdoor activities by incorporating thematic gardens around and up the new tower. The building’s regulation-driven bold appearance is balanced with an adaptive, performative facade, which is to be planned to incorporate the city’s rapidly changing and cataloged resources for reuse

Future school in car-parking for Innovationspark Zurich. 2023. Restricted competition. Structure: Dr. Ing. Mario Monotti. Building Technology: Amstein Walthert. Renderings: AIVA Images. Reference image credits: Marco Cappelletti / Filip Dujardin. This project is conceived as an infrastructure distinct from conventional parking facilities, designed as an adaptable structure that anticipates the evolving demands of transportation, urban space, education, and work environments. By integrating flexibility at every level, the project ensures that its function can evolve over time, transforming from a parking facility into a space for work, research, and social interaction. The non-destructive disassembly and reassembly of building components have been prioritized, reinforcing a commitment to adaptability and sustainability. By embracing modularity, reversibility, and spatial efficiency, this project challenges the traditional notion of infrastructure as static. Instead, it envisions a built environment in constant flux, ready to adapt to emerging mobility trends and urban needs

Low-tech office building in St. Gallen. Since 2022. Direct commission. In collaboration with Waldburger + Partner. Structure: Seger Ingenieure. Building Technology: HHM. Building Physics BB&A

Extension of an apartment building. 2020-21. Direct comission. Structure: Aschwanden & Partner. Timber Engineer Renggli. Building Physics gae. Building Technology 3-Plan Haustechnik. Timber Construction Kost Holzbau. Photography: Oliver Cretton. The residential building from the 50s has been raised to create two 3.5 room apartments within the maximum volume allowed by the building code. The cross laminated timber floor elements span the width of the structure to transfer the loads into the exterior walls of the existing building. In order to reduce the construction time to the minimum, the wooden building elements were entirely prefabricated and were assembled within four days. All wiring has been planned in 3D and inserted into milled recesses in wooden components

Modular school in Chablais. 2021. Open competition – 4th prize. In collaboration with Jan Kinsbergen and David Klemmer. Structure: Dr. Ing. Neven Kostic. Landscape: Proap – Estudos E Projectos De Arquitectura Paisagista. Renderings: Studio Diode. The construction principles define the volumes and shape the character of the interior, as the building method with serial prefabricated elements remains visible, without cladding. The proposed modular concept consists of columns, panels and diagonal elements. The composite panels of 2.38m x 7.14m are placed on four wooden columns to form tables that are lined up or stacked to form the space. A truss construction of wooden diagonals stabilizes the whole and allows large spans to be bridged

Flexible university building ETH HIC. 2019. Selected competition. In collaboration with Jan Kinsbergen. Structure: Dr. Ing. Mario Monotti.  Building Technology: Amstein Walthert. Climate consultant: Transolar. Renderings: Studio Diode. In response to a competition brief emphasizing innovation and flexibility, we explored the concept of spatial adaptability in three dimensions. This led to the development of a lightweight construction system—reducing material weight by approximately 40%—that creates a transformative and provisional space. Rather than imposing a fixed environment, the project invites students to engage with the space on their own terms, improvising within a flexible framework.
Our process-based approach rejects definitive beginnings and endings, instead embracing continuous transformation—an architecture conceived as loops rather than final products. This perspective shifts the focus from static design outcomes to the ongoing dynamics of construction, use, and adaptation. Loops are endless. We are drawn to the visual language of construction sites, both for their raw spatial qualities and for the way they blur the boundaries between building, renovation, and disassembly. These images amplify the informal and provisional nature of architecture, highlighting its inherent mutability. We believe that the monumental quality of modern architecture is not found in permanence, but in its making—the process of transformation, adaptation, and appropriation that defines space itself

Academic since 2022 Research Associate at USI Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio. Chair of Dr. Prof. Mario Monotti / 2024 Tutorship. University of Antwerp. International Design Week / 2023 Guest critic. University of Genova. Atelier Philipp Wündrich / 2022 Guest critic. University IUAV. Laboratorio Michel Carlana / 2022-2023 Research Associate. Technical University of Munich. Chair of Prof. Jeanette Kuo

Publications Werk, Bauen + Wohnen 11–2024 – Beim Schulhaus-Wettbewerb Brunnenhof in Zürich schlagen STUDIO URBAITE vor, die Turnhalle nicht einzugraben, undgewinnen. Um den Boden zu schonen, stapeln sie dieNutzungen vor dem einstigen Radiostudio, in dem zukünftigebenfalls Schulraum unterkommt. Ducken vor dem Max-Bill-Bau kam nicht in Frage. Volker Bienert / Hochparterre – Flucht in die Höhe. Olga Rausch Plates – Edited by Claudia Mion, images by David Klemmer. texts and drawings by Jan Kinsbergen and Neven Kostic. Graphic design by Spassky Fischer. Published by Caryatide. September 2024. English edition. 24 x 34 cm Brochure. 184 pages. ISBN : 978-2-493283-21-4 / Dixit #4 – Edited by Simon Campedel. Editorial coordination: Juliette Pochard. Project: ETH HIC. Construction: Jan Kinsbergen, URBAITE, Mario Monotti. Image: David Klemmer. Graphic design: Spassky Fischer with Lucas Lejeune. Published by Caryatide. July 2022. Bilingual edition (English and French) 23 x 30 cm (softcover) 64 pages (ill.) ISBN: 9782493283108. / Always work in progress – Caryatide. La galerie d’Architecture Paris. 2021 / The Architect’s Atlas – Series Mendrisio Academy Press. Edited by Bruno Pedretti. 2015. Binding Paperback. Size 17 x 24 cm. Pages 252. Illustrations 160 color, 120 in b/w. Language Italian and English. 2016. ISBN 9788836634569. / Atelier Bearth, Microcosmi – edited by Mihail Amariei. 2012. 20 x 24 cm, 352 pp. 500 ill. col. and b/w hardcover. English and Italian. ISBN 9788887624564

Exhibitions/Installations Physical Digital. University of Antwerp. 2024. Photography: Felix Waldner. The pervasive feeling of malaise and existential emptiness, which is central to the theme of alienation, serves as a symptomatic manifestation of contemporary life. This phenomenon consistently surfaces when examining issues like labor conditions within capitalist societies, leisure and consumption, disconnection from nature, and the all-encompassing impact of technology on our daily existence. Today, we are witnessing the exacerbation of this troubling condition due to our increasing and paradoxical isolation within hyper-connected societies. The migration of public spaces to the digital realm has transformed us into profitable data streams and faceless commentators. Considering our inherently social nature, face-to-face communication has always been a cornerstone of human interaction. However, what are the repercussions for our societies when physical presence is anathematized? / Always work in progress. Organisation Caryatide. La galerie d’Architecture Paris. 2021. / Feÿ Arts Festival. Villecien, Burgundy. 2019. Installation in collaboration with Myriam Treiber, Sergio Torres, Emanuelle Agustoni

Contacts Steinstrasse 65 – 8003 Zürich / +41 43 437 53 90 / info@urbaite.ch / CHE-146.342.368 MWST

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