João Paupério (Valongo, 1992) & Maria Rebelo (Porto, 1991) are architects graduated from the University of Porto (FAUP) and the co-founders of atelier local.
Between 2015 and 2018, they have both worked for the architecture office Baukunst, in Brussels. Beyond that period, Maria Rebelo carried out her professional internship at Atelier da Bouça - Filipa Guerreiro and Tiago Correia, architects. In 2017-18, João was a guest teaching assistant for the design studio tutored by Prof. Adrien Verschuere, at Université Catholique de Louvain (LOCI-Tournai), where he integrated the jury of several Master's dissertations. He is currently a researcher at the Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies at the University of Porto (CEAU-FAUP) where he is developing his doctoral research as a grantee of the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).
In parallel with their professional practice, they have written regularly, both in Portugal and abroad, for magazines and journals such as: Plot (Argentina), lieuxdits (Belgium), Failed Architecture (Netherlands), DOMa (Greece), Ark and PianoB (Italy), Engawa (Spain), Trans (Switzerland), Psiax, ArteCapital or Punkto (Portugal). Since 2020, they contribute regularly as translators and co-editors to Punkto journal.
As a researcher, João was invited to present his work at FAUP, at the Architecture Department of the University of Évora (DAUE) and at the Philosophy Institute of NOVA University in Lisbon (IFILNOVA). Together, they were invited to present the work developed by atelier local at the Architecture Department of the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE-IUL), where they also participated in the jury of several Final Projects of Architecture (PFA).
Since November 2023, Francisco Craveiro (Porto, 1993) has been part of atelier local. Graduated from FAUP and ETSAM (Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid), he spent six months as part of the "Iniciativa Outros Bairros" in Cabo Verde, an experience that culminated in the presentation of his master's thesis in July 2021. In 2018, he was one of the winners of the XIX Call for the Arquia/Becas competition, from the Fundación Arquia, which resulted in his integration into the team at the amid.cero9 studio in Madrid in 2019. Between 2021 and 2022, he worked as an architect at Panoramah!, in Portugal and Switzerland.
In April 2023, the first built work of atelier local (Studio House) was awarded an honourable mention (2nd place) in the first edition of the MGD Award, organised by Ordem dos Arquitectos. In 2024, House in Ancede was distinguished in the 2024 Young Architects Prize and nominated as finalist in the Forma Awards for the Emerging Young Architects category.
The first works of atelier local were published in the shared monographic issue of AMAG PT 04 international magazine.