Born in Lisbon, he presently teaches at the Department of Architecture at the University of Évora, Portugal. He received his degree from the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Lisbon (1992) and earned a M.Sc from Columbia University (GSAPP) New York (1995). In 2003 he completed his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the Design and Computation Group.
He taught at the Pontificia Universidad Católica (PUC) at Santiago, Chile (1996), the Universidad Tecnica Frederico Santa Maria, Valparaiso, Chile, (1997), at MIT as a teaching assistant (1998-2002) and received a Post-doc Fellowship from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London (2008). He is member of the CIDEHUS research centre and his research deals primarily with the development of computation in relation to architecture both from a historical and practical perspective.
He also pursues work regarding Portuguese heritage in the Mediterranean and Asian area. His most recent research work is linked to the International Cooperation Project Crossing the Mediterranean strait: 1300 years of Muslim culture at the Gharb al Andalous. A new architectural and historical perspective, by FTC and CNRST (Morocco).
Selected publications on heritage:
- Guilherme,P., Rocha, J. [2013]. “Architectural competitions as a lab: a study on Souto de Moura’s competitions entries”. In, Architectural Competitions–Histories and Practice. (Editors: Jonas E Andersson Gerd Bloxham Zettersten and Magnus Rönn). Stockholm: The Royal Institute of Technology. ISBN: 9789185249169. pp:159-93. http://dspace.uevora.pt/rdpc/handle/10174/8872
- Neves,I., Rocha, J., Duarte, JP. [2013].”The Legacy of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm for Computational design research in Architecture.” In, Open Systems: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA 2013). R. Stouffs, P. Janssen, S. Roudavski, B. Tunçer (Eds.) Singapore: Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture (CASA), Department of Architecture-NUS. ISBN 978-988-19-0264-1. pp: 293-302. http://dspace.uevora.pt/rdpc/handle/10174/8883
- Pacheco, P.,Mendes, R., Rocha, J., Oliveira, P. [2013]. Alqueva: Paisagem como tema: registos no território, unidades produtivas e observatórios do céu. Edição: EDIA, S.A., Museu da Luz. ISBN: 978-972-8666-14-9 http://hdl.handle.net/10174/8906
- Rocha, J., Duarte, J. [2007]. “Towards a new Design Tool for Urban Islamic Contexts. Zaouiat Lakhdar ad the Medina of Marrakech.” In, Proceedings of Traditional Mediterranean Architecture. Barcelona. ISBN 84 87104 79 7. pp: 235-238. http://hdl.handle.net/10174/2790
