Bio
Alina Paias is a spatial designer, writer, curator, and researcher investigating the technologies and forms of knowledge involved in the production of architecture by engaging with a broad range of philosophies.
She earned a Bachelor's degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo and a Master's degree cum laude in Architecture from the Delft University of Technology. She has years of experience as an architectural and cultural worker, having assisted the curation, design and production of exhibitions in Brazil, the Netherlands and the United States for institutions such as Lina Bo Bardi's Casa de Vidro/Glass House and the Nieuwe Instituut; most recently she worked at CLOUD in the design team responsible for the new entrance hall at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. She is one of the curators for the 2024 International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) and a member of the Editorial Team for Footprint, the Delft Architecture Theory Journal, and she is currently developing an exhibition on energy consumption and the technologies of architecture production for VI PER Gallery, in Prague, and for the Lisbon Triennale, with the support of the LINA platform.
Selected publications
2024: With Léa Alapini. “Making a/one-self: Afro-Brazilians and more-than-double architectures of the Black Atlantic.” In Noetics Without a Mind, edited by Robert A. Gorny, Stavros Kousoulas and Andrej Radman. Delft: TU Delft OPEN. 🌐️︎︎︎
2024: “Collective Work and Knowledge.” ARCH+: The Business of Architecture: 168. 🌐️︎︎︎
2024: “Ghosts of the Rio Doce: Tracing the Ethical Grounds for a Hauntological Practice of Architecture at the Site of Disaster.” In The Space of Technicity: Theorising Social, Technical and Environmental Entanglements, edited by Robert A. Gorny, Stavros Kousoulas, Dulmini Perera and Andrej Radman. Delft: TU Delft OPEN. 🌐️︎︎︎
2019: “The Home of the Witch.” The Funambulist: Insurgent Architectures 23: 50-53. 🌐️︎︎︎
Selected engagements
(Forthcoming) 2025: Curator of the exhibition Taking More than What's There to Give at VI PER Gallery and Lisbon Architecture Triennale. Prague, Czech Republic, and Lisbon, Portugal.
2024: “More Than Words: MOULD and APLO at the IABR.” Interview by Federica Zambeletti. KoozArch. 🌐️︎︎︎
2024: “Lexicon of Hope: Ruinorama and Phin Harper at the IABR.” Interview by Federica Zambeletti. KoozArch. 🌐️︎︎︎
2024: “Relations between energy and value: a proposed framework for ecologizing events of extraction.” Production Studies International Conference. Newcastle, England.
2024-current: Editorial Team member at Footprint: Delft Architecture Theory Journal.
2023-2024: Associate curator at the 2024 International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR). Rotterdam, Netherlands. 🌐️︎︎︎
2023: With Catherine Koekoek. “Sympoietic conditions for change: why are architects not willing to engage with the fact that their practice is situated?” Posthuman Symbioses Masterclass: A Thinking-With Donna Haraway and Rosi Braidotti. Delft, Netherlands. 📹︎︎︎
2023: Guest lecturer in the Architectural Positions course, subtheme Temporalities. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft.
2023: “The possibilities of raw materialism: accounting for difference in networked and multidimensional design.” Weaving Worlds: speculations between affect & evidence conference. Delft, Netherlands.
2022: “The forest as many things: encounters between native and non-native technologies and new ways of sensing the environment”. Noetics Without a Mind colloquium. Rotterdam, Netherlands.
2022: Guest lecturer in the Architectural Positions course, subtheme Temporalities. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft.
Selected awards/honors
2023-2024: LINA platform fellowship and support for exhibition.
Taking More than What's There to Give
2022: TU Delft nomination for the EUmies Young Talent Architecture Award.
Minas, as in Mines: a Hauntological Approach to the Site of Disaster
2022: TU Delft nomination for the DAIDA Foundation Global Urban Thesis Award.
Minas, as in Mines: a Hauntological Approach to the Site of Disaster
2022: TU Delft nomination for the national Archiprix.
Minas, as in Mines: a Hauntological Approach to the Site of Disaster 🌐️︎︎︎
CV︎︎︎
Twitter︎︎︎
are.na︎︎︎
For questions and collaborations contact info@alinapaias.com
This website was designed by my dearest friends Julia Vannucchi and Rodrigo Chedid in 2023 and I've been tinkering with it (and ruining it) ever since.
Nature of Hope
Type: Curatorial project
Director: Saskia van Stein
Curators: Janna Bystrykh, Catherine Koekoek, Alina Paias, Hani Salih, Noortje Weenink
Spatial and Material Consultants: Diogo Passarinho, Gonçalo Reynolds
Graphic Design: Esther Le Roy, Sarah Cleeremans
Production: Reineke Otten, Maria Christopoulou, Venla Keskinen
Public Program: Yonca Özbilge, Johanna Fuhler, Maaike Menheere
Marketing and Communications: Nienke Rothuizen, Roos Rookhuizen, Elisabeth Kuijt, Sabine van der Vooren
Management: Vivian Ammerlaan
Special Projects: Lena de Rouw
Commissioner: International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR)
Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands
Date: June 2024 - October 2024
Photographs by Jacqueline Fuijkschot and Sabine van der Vooren
The 11th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam proposed to foster the potential of spatial design to move toward an architecture of ecologies. Centering the themes of nature, hope, land, and relations, the IABR amplified more than 75 practices that acknowledge people and materials as part of shared ecosystems, and that enact hopeful futures starting from an awareness of their own position within complex historical, social and material networks.
The event consisted of three complementary expressions—an exhibition, a public program, and a network of urban nature initiatives. A detailed description for each of them can be found on the Nature of Hope website︎︎︎
Minas, as in Mines
Type: Master's thesis
Team: Alina Paias
Supervisor: Vanessa Grossman, Stavros Kousoulas, Hubert van der Meel
Institution: TU Delft
Location: Rio Doce, Brazil
Date: September 2021 - July 2022
This project responds to the event of disaster; more specifically, the contamination of the Rio Doce valley and the disruption of its cycles after the failure of an iron ore mine's tailings dam in 2015, in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The damages initiated by the rupture took and still take many forms, extending over vast stretches of time and space. The engagements with the reverberations of this man-made catastrophe have been mediated by different understandings of justice, as the company responsible for managing the mine has been executing a complex and multi-layered reparations plan all over the valley as a part of a conduct adjustment agreement.
This proposal works under a different framing of justice, informed by the notion of responsibility as laid out by the philosopher Jacques Derrida in his writings on hauntology. From the initial hauntological approach this project manipulates and questions associated concepts such as response-ability, entanglement, ongoingness, contamination, co-constitution, purity and complexity, drawing from several theoretical sources, and proposes life-affirming sites for the circulation of materials, people and knowledge, against the threat of premature death posed by the extractive economy. That happens through two main interventions: spanning the entire river valley, the Line of Gift is a system for the movement of people that is executed through the appropriation of the existing extractive infrastructure, especially the Vitória-Minas railway. Simultaneously, a smaller node at the town of Rio Doce associates community-based productive activities to the fabrication of geopolymer concrete building elements using iron ore tailings as fillers. The continued production of this material is guaranteed through the supply of tailings from several soon-to-be-deactivated dams following a national resolution passed in 2019.
Link to complete thesis︎︎︎
Solar Cloud
Type: Art installation
Team: Paul Cournet, Alina Paias
Team leader: Paul Cournet
Office: CLOUD
Commissioner: BlowUp Art Den Haag
Location: Den Haag, Netherlands
Date: February 2023 - May 2023
Photographs by Ronald Smits
SOLAR CLOUD is an inflatable installation that floats above the Berlage kiosk’s terrace, located in Den Haag's historical city center. The piece is inspired by weather and solar balloons, objects designed to fulfill their functions in the most direct way possible. The printed message on its bottom layer, 'GOOD NEWS,' is a reference to Edwin Schlossberg's art project mentioned in the 1968 Whole Earth Catalog, a countercultural publication about ecology, cybernetics, science and architecture. The piece retains the humor and wittiness of the original movement and can be read in either a more optimistic or more caustic tone.
Archives at Risk
Type: Exhibition project
Team: Tomas Dirrix, Alina Paias
Team leader: Tomas Dirrix
Office: Atelier Tomas Dirrix
Commissioner: Het Nieuwe Instituut
Location: Eindhoven, Netherlands
Date: September 2022 - October 2022
Photographs by Jeph Francissen
Archives at Risk was a project presented by Het Nieuwe Instituut/Netwerk Archieven Design en Digitale Cultuur (NADD) during the 2022 Dutch Design Week. The intention behind the exhibition was to introduce the lack of a centralized, national design archive as an issue of public interest.
As a designer within Atelier Tomas Dirrix, I was tasked with developing the initial concept for the exhibition into a spatialized and feasible project while incorporating feedback from all collaborators involved and dealing with the material and construction constraints that a temporary project entails.
The installation consisted of a 16 meter long sculptural wall where photos of the archives of five designers (Borre, Emile Truijen, Hella Jongerius, Elma Beks through Jason Page+Karen Huang and Lies Ros), made especially for the project by Johannes Schwartz, were shown. In front of the wall, five sculptural objects designed by Manon van Hoeckel showed paper columns with phrases extracted from interviews with the designers being shredded into piles on the floor. Visitors could also sit down in a nook between panels and listen to the interviews and take handouts with points of action for better archival practices.
Project AAA
Type: Exhibiton project, curatorial project
Team: Sol Camacho, Alina Paias, Giovanna Tozzi
Team leader: Sol Camacho
Office: RADDAR
Commissioner: Gomide & Co, Fortes d'Aloia & Gabriel
Location: Chicago, USA, and São Paulo, Brazil
Date: September 2022 - October 2022
Photographs by Evan Jenkins and Edu Ortega
Project A.A.A. consisted of two exhibitions in Chicago and São Paulo. Art and Architecture Atlas of Brazil was designed in partnership with the gallery Gomide & Co for the 2019 edition of Expo Chicago. The team, comprised of Sol Camacho and I, was responsible for co-curating the exhibition and designing the booth. Antologia de Arte e Arquitetura was presented at Fortes d'Aloia & Gabriel in 2020 and was the result of a partnership between FdAG, Gomide & Co and RADDAR. Within a large team of members from both galleries and the office, I helped with selecting works and contacting artists and designing the exhibition space with Giovanna Tozzi.
Both projects explored exchanges between art and architecture in Brazil throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The exhibition design was based on opportunities to re-frame objects so they could be experienced from different angles and heights, allowing for conceptual and formal associations between artworks, furniture and decorative pieces, architecture models and drawings.
Nature of Hope
Type: Curatorial project
Director: Saskia van Stein
Curators: Janna Bystrykh, Catherine Koekoek, Alina Paias, Hani Salih, Noortje Weenink
Spatial and Material Consultants: Diogo Passarinho, Gonçalo Reynolds
Graphic Design: Esther Le Roy, Sarah Cleeremans
Production: Reineke Otten, Maria Christopoulou, Venla Keskinen
Public Program: Yonca Özbilge, Johanna Fuhler, Maaike Menheere
Marketing and Communications: Nienke Rothuizen, Roos Rookhuizen, Elisabeth Kuijt, Sabine van der Vooren
Management: Vivian Ammerlaan
Special Projects: Lena de Rouw
Commissioner: International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR)
Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands
Date: June 2024 - October 2024
Photographs by Jacqueline Fuijkschot and Sabine van der Vooren
The 11th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam proposed to foster the potential of spatial design to move toward an architecture of ecologies. Centering the themes of nature, hope, land, and relations, the IABR amplified more than 75 practices that acknowledge people and materials as part of shared ecosystems, and that enact hopeful futures starting from an awareness of their own position within complex historical, social and material networks.
The event consisted of three complementary expressions—an exhibition, a public program, and a network of urban nature initiatives. A detailed description for each of them can be found on the Nature of Hope website︎︎︎
Minas, as in Mines
Type: Master's thesis
Team: Alina Paias
Supervisor: Vanessa Grossman, Stavros Kousoulas, Hubert van der Meel
Institution: TU Delft
Location: Rio Doce, Brazil
Date: September 2021 - July 2022
This project responds to the event of disaster; more specifically, the contamination of the Rio Doce valley and the disruption of its cycles after the failure of an iron ore mine's tailings dam in 2015, in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The damages initiated by the rupture took and still take many forms, extending over vast stretches of time and space. The engagements with the reverberations of this man-made catastrophe have been mediated by different understandings of justice, as the company responsible for managing the mine has been executing a complex and multi-layered reparations plan all over the valley as a part of a conduct adjustment agreement.
This proposal works under a different framing of justice, informed by the notion of responsibility as laid out by the philosopher Jacques Derrida in his writings on hauntology (an ontology of the not-there). From the initial hauntological approach this project manipulates and questions associated concepts such as response-ability, entanglement, ongoingness, contamination, co-constitution, purity and complexity, drawing from several theoretical sources, and proposes life-affirming sites for the circulation of materials, people and knowledge, against the threat of premature death posed by the extractive economy. That happens through two main interventions: spanning the entire river valley, the Line of Gift is a system for the movement of people that is executed through the appropriation of the existing extractive infrastructure, especially the Vitória-Minas railway. Simultaneously, a smaller node at the town of Rio Doce associates community-based productive activities to the fabrication of geopolymer concrete building elements using iron ore tailings as fillers. The continued production of this material is guaranteed through the supply of tailings from several soon-to-be-deactivated dams following a national resolution passed in 2019.
Link to complete thesis︎︎︎
Solar Cloud
Type: Art installation
Team: Paul Cournet, Alina Paias
Team leader: Paul Cournet
Office: CLOUD
Commissioner: BlowUp Art Den Haag
Location: Den Haag, Netherlands
Date: February 2023 - May 2023
Photographs by Ronald Smits
SOLAR CLOUD is an inflatable installation that floats above the Berlage kiosk’s terrace, located in Den Haag's historical city center. The piece is inspired by weather and solar balloons, objects designed to fulfill their functions in the most direct way possible. The printed message on its bottom layer, 'GOOD NEWS,' is a reference to Edwin Schlossberg's art project mentioned in the 1968 Whole Earth Catalog, a countercultural publication about ecology, cybernetics, science and architecture. The piece retains the humor and wittiness of the original movement and can be read in either a more optimistic or more caustic tone.
Archives at Risk
Type: Exhibition project
Team: Tomas Dirrix, Alina Paias
Team leader: Tomas Dirrix
Office: Atelier Tomas Dirrix
Commissioner: Het Nieuwe Instituut
Location: Eindhoven, Netherlands
Date: September 2022 - October 2022
Photographs by Jeph Francissen
Archives at Risk was a project presented by Het Nieuwe Instituut/Netwerk Archieven Design en Digitale Cultuur (NADD) during the 2022 Dutch Design Week. The intention behind the exhibition was to introduce the lack of a centralized, national design archive as an issue of public interest.
As a designer within Atelier Tomas Dirrix, I was tasked with developing the initial concept for the exhibition into a spatialized and feasible project while incorporating feedback from all collaborators involved and dealing with the material and construction constraints that a temporary project entails.
The installation consisted of a 16 meter long sculptural wall where photos of the archives of five designers (Borre, Emile Truijen, Hella Jongerius, Elma Beks through Jason Page+Karen Huang and Lies Ros), made especially for the project by Johannes Schwartz, were shown. In front of the wall, five sculptural objects designed by Manon van Hoeckel showed paper columns with phrases extracted from interviews with the designers being shredded into piles on the floor. Visitors could also sit down in a nook between panels and listen to the interviews and take handouts with points of action for better archival practices.
Project AAA
Type: Exhibiton project, curatorial project
Team: Sol Camacho, Alina Paias, Giovanna Tozzi
Team leader: Sol Camacho
Office: RADDAR
Commissioner: Gomide & Co, Fortes d'Aloia & Gabriel
Location: Chicago, USA, and São Paulo, Brazil
Date: September 2022 - October 2022
Photographs by Evan Jenkins and Edu Ortega
Project A.A.A. consisted of two exhibitions in Chicago and São Paulo. Art and Architecture Atlas of Brazil was designed in partnership with the gallery Gomide & Co for the 2019 edition of Expo Chicago. The team, comprised of Sol Camacho and I, was responsible for co-curating the exhibition and designing the booth. Antologia de Arte e Arquitetura was presented at Fortes d'Aloia & Gabriel in 2020 and was the result of a partnership between FdAG, Gomide & Co and RADDAR. Within a large team of members from both galleries and the office, I helped with selecting works and contacting artists and designing the exhibition space with Giovanna Tozzi.
Both projects explored exchanges between art and architecture in Brazil throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The exhibition design was based on opportunities to re-frame objects so they could be experienced from different angles and heights, allowing for conceptual and formal associations between artworks, furniture and decorative pieces, architecture models and drawings.