We challenged the Técnico alumnus José Cláudio Silva to return to Alameda campus, where he discovered himself. He is Design Partner at 10Design, and was involved in several innovative projects, namely the Marina Bay Sands SkyPark.

Son of a Portuguese father and a Brazilian mother, the alumnus shares: “Both of my parents are academic, and they were very good students in Brazil and Portugal. They were Fulbright scholarship holders and they met in Houston”. When José Cláudio Silva was only 3 years old his father had a job proposal and the family moved to Portugal, where he spent his childhood and adolescence, and discovered the passion for architecture.

From Mechanical Engineering to Architecture 

Although José Cláudio Silva had always shown a taste for architecture, he decided to apply for Mechanical Engineering. He got into Técnico, but he didn’t stay too long studying Mechanical Engineering. “By the end of the first two years I realised that everything that interested me had nothing to do with Mechanical Engineering. I liked Mathematics, Physics and Drawing”, recalls the alumnus. By this time, the Architecture course opened at Técnico. He did not hesitate and asked for a course transfer. “I think I made the right decision because I really feel I was born for this”.

“Everything was very rational and logical in Mechanical Engineering course. In Architecture course, especially in Design and Project, I had to adapt and learn to deal with subjective topics”, points out José Cláudio Silva. “The creation process varies a lot from person to person. Our professors stimulated a lot that, which was crucial to change my mindset, to understand what it was like to have an architect’s mindset, a designer’s mindset”, he shares. “I learnt a lot, I don’t know if all students feel the same way, but for me it was a self-discovery”, he adds.

When José Cláudio Silva decided to change his study path he became aware that one or more international experiences would benefit his future career. In fact, he went to Barcelona in the final year. “It was very important because I met very good professors and I was lucky to have excellent colleagues to work with”, he says. “I had a remarkable performance in one particular subject – Urban Planning – which is very traditional at ETSAB [Barcelona School of Architecture]. After that a professor invited me to work with him”.

The start of a dream

The close student-professor relationship between the Técnico alumnus and professor Manuel Vicente paved the way for new opportunities. “I spoke to professor Manuel Vicente, with whom I had a close relationship, and he challenged me and another colleague to work in his studio, in Macau”, he shares. “I worked with him for a year. By that time, the Architecture degree at Técnico was recognised by the Ordem dos Arquitetos – OA (Portuguese Chamber of Architects). I decided to do the OA internship, and after that I stayed another year and a half in Macau”, he says.

After two years in Macau and after working in another studio, he realised that he wanted to go further and have the most complete international experience possible: “I thought it didn’t make much sense to continue working in a Portuguese environment when I was 10,000 km from home,” he says. “Working in an international environment made more sense to me, so I applied to a Hong-Kong based firm and they hired me,” he adds.

The first opportunity to work with Sands, the world’s leading integrated resort developer, came when he was as a junior architect at Aedas. At the time, the company was building a hotel for an integrated resort in Macau and he quickly stood out. When Aedas won the Marina Bay Sands project, he was invited to be part of the project and joined the team of 10/12 architects.

SkyPark: An ecstatic project

At 29 years old, the Técnico alumnus embraced the most challenging project of his career when he was appointed the team leader for the SkyPark at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

José Cláudio Silva shares the pressure he felt at that time: “3 people had already been appointed and they had left because they had not been able to meet the expectations of the firm and the client”.

In addition to the communication and documental challenges, there were several technical challenges that the team of architects (around 120), had to overcome. “It was a complex challenge. It consists of a plank across the roof of the resort’s three towers, which have different behaviours and different reactions to the wind, to possible earthquakes, etc.”, says José Cláudio Silva.

The Técnico alumnus has no doubts about the impact that this project had on his career: “I learnt something new every day and that prepared me for all the projects that came next. It was a challenge at different levels – communication, managing dates and large teams”, he says. This was also a career milestone for José Cláudio Silva: “From that time on, I was/am the lead designer of every project”, stresses the alumnus.

The emotional impact of his projects

The alumnus portfolio includes several different projects. The first one he tells us about is a project carried out by the Chip Mong company, in Cambodia. “When I met the team, they had already built a hotel and wanted to build a mixed-use building. The idea was to build two towers, to accommodate a hotel and offices, and I managed to convince them that, in terms of design and value of property, it made more sense to build one on top of the other. The tallest building should be used as a hotel, with a rooftop bar to enjoy the spectacular views of Phnom Penh”, he says. “It should be ready in one year”, he reveals.

José Cláudio Silva is involved in another project in Phnom Penh. “This was a landfill site, so we could not build any basement due to the high groundwater level and cost of construction below the ground floor. We decided that the first 2 floors will be destined to commerce and the 4th floor will be a parking space. The 3 towers will be built on top, it’s an incredible project. One of the towers will be used as a hotel and the other towers were designed to accomodate offices”, he shares.

Ten months ago, 10Design invited him and his partner, who is a master planner, to establish the 10Design studio in Singapore. “It’s a company that is expanding significantly, but still didn’t have a presence in Southeast Asia. I had already been in contact with the 10Design team at conferences and in other circumstances so we already knew each other”, he shares. “There is great cooperation among us, which is great”, he adds.

“I am passionate about bringing something unexpected, triggering emotions through buildings. I am excited that each Project is different, with a different urban and social context. This brings diversity, novelty, challenge, which are things that I really like”, he stresses.