Rui Furtado was born in 1959 in Porto. He graduated from Porto University in 1982 with a Civil Engineering degree. After his graduation, he began his professional career as a structural engineer. Currently, he is Senior Member of the Order of Engineers and was awarded the rank of Specialist in Structures.

In 2012, Mr. Furtado was invited to lecture Analysis of Structures as a Visiting Professor for the Architecture degree at University of Joseph in Macau. At the moment, he is lecturing the Structures course for the Masters degree in Architecture at Porto’s Lusófona University.

Besides his academic career, Mr. Furtado is the manager at AFAconsult - a Multidisciplinary Projects Office - where the general practice promotes a philosophy of integrated design as a way to improve the final result: The Building.

The integration of structures as a way to potentiate the architectural final result is the main concern of his professional activity. The lightness of the buildings combined with the rationality of their construction have been the main goals of the projects he has developed in recent years.

Over the past 30 years, he has led numerous structural and multi-disciplinary projects. Among these many projects, a few stand out: the Braga Municipal Stadium, Casa da Música in Porto, the Coaches Museum in Lisbon, The House of Stories in Cascais, the Portuguese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2008 and the Portuguese Pavilion at Expo Hannover in 2000.

Considering the current projects under his responsibility, the “Comandante Ferraz” Brazilan Station in Antarctica, the MAC – Museum of Contemporary Art for the São Paulo University (USP) in São Paulo, the Technological Institute for Sustainable Development for Vale (ITV DS) in Belém do Pará, 2 towers with the height of 150m in Milan, 2 towers in China, EDP’s Center for the Arts in Lisbon and the new EDP headquarters in Lisbon (under construction) are noteworthy.