Bárbara Maçães Costa is an architect and academic. She studied Architecture at the University of Porto, Drawing at the University of Lisbon, and holds a PhD in Architecture and Sciences of the City from the EPFL. Outside of academia, she works primarily in the fields of landscape and urbanism. Her teaching and research cover these disciplines, with a particular interest in cartography and modern environmental aesthetics. She is Senior Lecturer at Kingston University London and Visiting Lecturer at EPFL.

My teaching focuses on the relationship between architecture and landscape. I have explored this topic in the context of theory courses on modernism, landscape-based design studios, and mixed units focusing on representation, particularly cartography. In all cases, I aim to challenge the perception of buildings as reified icons, presenting them instead as environmental artefacts that embody certain histories and ideologies.
My research interests include the disciplinary boundaries between architecture and landscape; the tension between site and drawing as the primary loci of the project; the role of drawing as a mediator between theory and practice; and the debate between autonomy and realism in the neo-avant-garde. I am also interested in the problematic legacy of cartography within the Enlightenment project and its post-war critique, particularly in relation to the philosophical category of 'totality'.

AR-476 UE U : Cartography
Teaching unit on cartography and environmental relations in architecture.

AR-505 Modernity, Architecture & the Environment
Theory course on modernist environmental aesthetics in architecture.