The father is an anesthesiologist. The mother manages everything and everyone with a firm hand. And during the summers, instead of going to the beach, the little girl would help her father build a boat in the backyard. Nails, assembly diagrams, pieces that had to fit together. It was not child’s play. It was, without her realizing it at the time, training. That little girl is now Maria João Correia, the architect behind Segmento Urbano, a studio founded in 2016 that works on what happens before a project even exists. Land analysis, feasibility studies, legislation. They called it Land Staging and turned it into a methodology.
But the path to get here was not straightforward. Before finishing high school, she was already spending time in England. She chose London to study architecture even though she had also been accepted in Porto. It was not out of whim. It was because she wanted to understand how the systems behind buildings work, not just how they are designed.
Twenty years later, what sets her apart is not the portfolio. It is the starting question. While most studios begin with the functional program or aesthetics, Maria João Correia, a “territory strategist,” starts with something else: “how do we want someone to feel here?” She calls it the “architecture of being.” The project Echoes of the Void, which won an AFX award at the World Architecture Festival in 2025, explores precisely this: the idea that space can have an almost therapeutic effect on those who inhabit it.
Maria João Correia, a “territory strategist,” starts with something else: “how do we want someone to feel here?” She calls it the “architecture of being.”
AtmosphereSegmento Urbano
Where does this connection between concept and reality come from in your journey?
My father is an anesthesiologist and always had a medical profession with enormous physical and mental pressure. He worked a lot. My mother did too, a super leader. And during the holidays, my father would build a boat. So, part of my childhood summers was always connected to this link between the conceptual and the real, from buying nails to drawing the boat’s assembly schemes. I think that perhaps my passion for connecting concept and reality comes from there.
And how do you go from that context to Segmento Urbano and adult life?
In adulthood, I am from Guimarães, the cradle city of Portugal. While still very young, before my final year of high school, I attended some English courses in England. And in my final year, I chose to pursue a different kind of education from the norm: I studied architecture in London. I was also accepted in Porto, but I chose London. I think this desire to do something different comes from there.
Segmento Urbano was born in 2016 from the need to respond to a large project we won at the time. And that was how the first project emerged, a residential condominium.
There is an interesting concept mentioned here: Land Staging. What exactly is it and why is it so relevant?
Land Staging is a concept, a methodology that we developed. The name emerged precisely to break away a little from the usual — people hear about Home Staging, but Land Staging is related to land.
It was born from a methodology we developed over 20 years, based on two very simple questions that people always asked us: “what can be done here?” and “how much could it cost?”
Over time, we realized that we are not just architects, we are almost territory strategists. We can easily interpret what is possible in terms of legislation, cross-referencing information, and so on, and transform that into a clear methodology that explains the potential of a plot of land, how much it may cost, and what bureaucratic process is necessary to achieve that objective.
MetamorfosesSegmento Urbano
Over these 20 years, are there projects that have been particularly remarkable?
Yes, I would highlight three. One was a modular school called CISPOD, developed for Luanda as part of the National Literacy Program. It was also the first time we became finalists at the World Architecture Festival, in Singapore, in 2012.
Another project was the Metamorfoses Building, the headquarters of a construction company based on concepts of meritocracy and the integration of multiple functions.
Echoes of the Void, distinguished in 2025 with an AFX award at the World Architecture Festival, is a project that represents what we are interested in exploring: architecture’s ability to make people feel better. We are talking almost about therapeutic or healing architecture. Recent studies show that space deeply influences people’s well-being, that idea that “architecture can heal.” That is what we explore in this project, which is very important for our studio and has had a significant impact.
That connects with the concept of the “architecture of being.” What exactly does it mean?
The architecture of being is the way we work. We do not create architecture as an isolated urban object, but instead think about architecture based on how people feel inside a space. Space should be designed for the function and for the people who will inhabit it, not according to what I like or what any architect likes. It is not author-driven architecture in the traditional sense. It is architecture from the author for the person.
You also introduced two concepts: Build Lab and Gateway.
Build Lab is a way of bringing learning closer to the real world. It functions almost like a school, although not formally yet, and seeks to bridge the gap between traditional education and professional reality in the architecture, engineering, and construction sectors. Gateway is an initiative created for temporary work agencies, with the goal of better structuring the connection between people and the needs of the sector.
HeroSegmento Urbano
Looking toward the future, what are Segmento Urbano’s priorities?
We want to continue innovating within the architecture, engineering, and construction sectors. On one hand, through Build Lab, by training people for the industry. On the other, through Land Staging, by mitigating risk. We believe that many of the problems in the sector could be solved before the design phase. Therefore, our focus is to strengthen the pre-project strategy phase — territorial analysis, contextual framing, and planning — while simultaneously training the professionals the sector needs.
There is also a clear concern with legacy. How does that materialize?
Yes, that is our purpose: to give back to the market and leave a legacy. Over 20 years, we have reached many conclusions about what works and what does not. We transformed that into a methodology and want to contribute to a more professional and competent sector. We all live and work in buildings, so they should increasingly reflect who we are and what we need in order to be happier and healthier, both physically and mentally. And architecture plays a huge role in that.