COP30: Architects imagine a prototype of bioclimatic housing to build differently

As part of the France-Brazil 2025 cross-cultural season initiated by the President of the Republic and his Brazilian counterpart, the National Council of the Order of Architects has designed an ambitious cooperation project focused on sustainable and bioclimatic architecture and social housing in the Amazon.

Coordinated by the French Order of Architects and with the support of the French Institute, a coalition of actors, composed of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), the National School of Architecture of Paris-Belleville (ENSA-PB) and the NGO of Belém Laboratorio da Cidade, joined forces to set up a residency program in Belém from July to November 2025, resulting in a concrete and exemplary housing prototype.

Students, teachers and architects from both countries worked together for three months to design a demonstrator of social housing on stilts made of bio-sourced materials adapted to climate change in the Amazon, and to ensure its construction through a participatory construction site.

Based on vernacular Amazonian building systems and Brazilian and French innovations in eco-materials, the project emphasizes timber construction on stilts (called palafitas in Brazil) and the use of local bio-based and geo-sourced resources. Built on the UFPA campus in Belém, the demonstrator will serve as a venue for public events during COP30.

The project strengthens professional exchanges between architects in the Caribbean, French Guiana, and the Americas, and fosters more active cooperation between French, Brazilian, and pan-American associations and professional bodies. This tropical example will also serve as a source of inspiration for housing in French Guiana, the Caribbean, and Mayotte.

COP30 – Belem – Provisional agenda of events of the Order of Architects

Thursday, November 13 | 12:30 | Green Zone | CAU/PA Pavilion

• Prototype presentation

Thursday, November 13 | 12:30 | UFPA

• Presentation of the Green Solutions Awards (Construction21)

Friday, November 14 | 15:30–17:00 PM | Blue Zone | Buildings and Cooling Pavilion

• “Complementarity of heritage and sufficiency”

Saturday, November 15 | 11:00-12:30 | Green Zone | Guyana Pavilion

• "Sustainable construction for inhabiting today's and tomorrow's world: French solutions and obstacles to the Guiana Shields"

Saturday, November 15 | 12:00 | Blue Zone | Buildings and Cooling Pavilion

• Webinar | “Innovation and Implementation”

Saturday, November 15 | 16:00 PM - 21:00 PM | Alliance Française

• Roundtable / Networking

Monday, November 17 | UFPA

• Presentation of the Pan-American Plea & Pile Dwellings Exhibition

Wednesday, November 19 | 16:30-18:00 PM | Green Zone | Guyana Pavilion

• Presentation of the Architectures and Territories 2024 meetings (Cooperation in the Amazon basin facing the challenges of climate change) & of the Architectures and Territories 2025 meetings (Preserving a living world: marine submersion on our coastal strips)

Thursday, November 20 | 16:00-17:30 PM | Green Zone | Guyana Pavilion

• Roundtable | Architecture and housing policies: from unsanitary housing to sustainable rehabilitation