Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves graduated from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 1993. As a young practicing architect, she worked in Oscar Niemeyer´s office, in Rio de Janeiro, between 1993 and 1995. In 1996 she was awarded her master’s degree in Environment and Energy from the AA Graduate School in London and in 2003 she earned her PhD degree from FAUUSP. She has been teaching at the Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL since 2021. In 2024 she became an Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture (BSA), teaching at the BSc, MENg and MSci courses. Since 2019 Joana is a Course Tutor of the Environmental Technical Studies at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, teaching at Foundation, Intermediate and the Diploma School. Between 2020 and 2024 she was a Course Master of the MSc & MArch in Sustainable Environmental Design Programme in the AA Graduate School. She is also an Associate Lecturer at the School of Architecture in Central Saint Martins, where she teaches environmental design disciplines. Joana Gonçalves was an Associate Professor of Environmental Design at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo (FAUUSP) between 2015 and 2019, where she taught since 1998. In 2011 she was a guest lecturer at the Graduate School of Design (GSD) in Harvard University. In 2017 Joana was made a Board Director of the international network PLEA (Passive and Low Energy Architecture) – Sustainable Architecture and Urban Design, in 2022 she became the Vice-President of PLEA, a network that she is part of since 2004 as an Associate.
She is the author of a number publications including the book The Environmental Performance of Tall Buildings (2010) with Earthscan, London; Joana was one of the coordinators of the Buildings’ chapter in the UNEP Green Economy Report (2011). She was co-author and organizer of Edificio Ambiental (2015), by Oficina de Textos, São Paulo. More recently, she contributed to various technical publications, including Buildings for Extreme Environments: Tropical (2017), organized by CIBSE-UK. She is also the author of more than 50 scientific articles, including several on the theme of Tall Buildings. Revealing the thermal environmental quality of the high-density residential tall building from the Brazilian bioclimatic modernism: the case-study of Copan building, in: Energy and Buildings (2018), is one of the most recent and widely read of her publications. In FAUUSP, Joana has coordinated several research projects, including the international collaboration between the University of Nottingham, University of Birmingham and FAUUSP, São Paulo, entitled Re-inhabiting the City: bringing new life to city centres of emerging economies in a changing climate: The case of São Paulo (2017 – 2018), sponsored by EPRC-UK and FAPESP, São Paulo. Her most recent research project is Data Driven Redesign for Urban Climate Adaptation in Brazilian Informal Settlements: Case study of favela São Remo, São Paulo (DDRUCABI), 3-year research funded by the Royal Society, UK. This is an international collaboration initiative between researchers from the Bartlett School of Energy, Environment and Resources at University College London, the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo and the Architectural Association School of Architecture, in London. In environmental and sustainability consultancy, she some of the key projects are: Petrobras Research Centre II, in Rio de Janeiro (2011); Environmental Retrofit of FAUUSP’s Roof (2014); The Environmental Impact of Verticalization – Salvador Strategic Urban Development Plan (2016); Methodology for Retrofit of Social Housing in Brazil, for the Brazilian Ministry of Housing (2021); among others dealing with office and residential buildings, as well as urban design.