José Forjaz • Arquitectos is a firm specialized in urban and architectural projects, with a large experience in Southern Africa, specially in Mozambique, where the company designed and worked on projects throughout the country. José Forjaz • Arquitectos is a private and independent firm formed by the association of architects with the architect José Forjaz, a consultant with almost 50 years of practice in Southern Africa.

The firm is registered for the execution of architecture, urban design, physical planning and landscape projects, graphic design, furniture and equipment design, construction supervision, elaboration of construction programme and consultancy of all the mentioned activities, and has in its history a great number of projects in the following fields:

• Housing and residential buildings;

• Academic buildings (primary, secondary and university levels);

• Administrative, office and commercial buildings;

• Religious buildings;

• Regional and urban design;

• Monumental and special and structures;

• Industrial buildings;

• Graphic design;

• Interior design;

• Furniture design.

The company has 7 registered architects and one administrative assistant. The team’s experience has grown in the last seventeen years of professional activity, during which time the team members created strong bonds with the engineering and quantity survey consultants.

All the designing process, from conception to execution is backed up with the latest CAD softwares. The company is equipped with a network of thirteen desktops and several laptops, all with the latest version of Graphisoft ArchiCad, an exclusive server, a multifunction office printer, a plotter and all the necessary equipment for photography and image processing. It also has an extensive catalogue and product manuals archive, as well as the technical backup of several suppliers and manufacturers.

The consultancy company José Forjaz • Arquitectos Lda. was formed from the isolated practice of its senior partner, the architect José Forjaz, who recruited some his best students from the Architecture and Physical Planning Faculty of the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), which he directed until 2008. 

The company’s experience includes, besides the work done during the years of its existence, all the professional background of the architect José Forjaz.

José Forjaz’s professional experience begins in the late 50s, as a draughtsman for the Public Works Provincial Services, intern and collaborator of Architect Miranda Guedes (Pancho Guedes) and, during the years of his training at the ESBAP in Porto (Portugal), collaborator of Architects João Andresen, Arnaldo Araújo, Frederico Jorge and Laginha and Architect Octávio Lixa Filgueiras, who was the head of the Portuguese Heritage services for several years. After his graduation (Suma cum Laude), José Forjaz worked in the firm of Architects Conceição Silva, Maurício de Vasconcelos and Bartolomeu Costa Cabral, the main architecture firm of the 60s in Portugal. After the years of military service, he obtained the Master of Science in Architecture degree of Columbia University in New York and came back to Africa and started a private practice in Mbabane, Swaziland, where he designed hundreds of projects during the seven years he lived there, until returning to Mozambique in 1975.

During the first 10 years of the country’s Independence José Forjaz worked for the government, always keeping his architecture practice, mostly for institutional projects.  

From 1985 José Forjaz became responsible for creating, and then run, the Faculty of Architecture of Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), where he conducted several courses of architectural composition, history of architecture, landscape architecture, etc., and oriented the graduation work of the majority of graduates.

This professional and academic experience has deeply influenced the character of the consultancy firm he now runs, always keeping a systematic attitude of in-depth research of the themes the projects need.