A conversation with João Silva

João Silva has worked as a structural engineer for twenty-two years. He collaborates regularly with Forma Atelier and has been the structural engineer on several of the studio's residential projects.

On concrete as a material with character: concrete behaves. It moves with temperature, it creaks at night when it cools. It remembers its formwork — you can see the grain of the plywood in the face of a wall thirty years later. People treat it as a neutral material, a technical solution, but it is actually very particular. It demands respect.

On working with a small studio: on a large commission there are fifteen people in the room and by the time any decision is taken, it has been averaged. The interesting part of the decision — the reasoning — has often been lost. With Marina and Rafael, the conversation is direct. If I think a wall should be thicker, I say so and we argue about it. Usually the house is better for the argument.

On what is misunderstood about structural engineering in residential work: that it is purely technical. The structure is part of the experience of a building. The span of a concrete slab, the depth of a beam — these are not neutral. They determine what a space feels like and how the light behaves in it. The best work happens when the architect and engineer are thinking about the same thing.