Project management helps make things happen
Interview with Adriana Figueiredo
Project Manager, Architect and Urban Planner
Architect Manager, Temporary Infrastructures
Paris 2024 Olympic Games
Interviewed by Yasmina Khelifi
International Correspondent, PM World Journal
Paris, France
Introduction to the interviewee
Adriana Figueiredo holds an undergraduate degree in Architecture and Urban Planning, Universidade Gama Filho in Brazil; a master’s degree in Architecture History and Theory at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; and a master’s in Architecture Sustainability and Design at the University of East London in the UK. Over the years, Figueiredo has built a career as a consultant for companies and local governments, specializing in Architecture and Urban Planning projects. She has also managed international assistance programs for Brazil, with a particular focus on Sustainable Cities and Green Finance. She is skilled in managing and coordinating public and private projects and implementing programs involving public administration, multilateral organizations, and private consultants in multicultural environments. She held key project leadership roles for both the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and the Rio 2016 Olympics in Brazil. She can be contacted at linkedin.com/in/adriananfigueiredo
Interview
Q1: First, thank you for accepting an interview request from PMWJ. You were the Architect Manager – Temporary Infrastructures in Paris 2024. Can you explain your responsibilities and objectives? What are the temporary infrastructures?
Adriana Figueiredo (Figueiredo): Thank you for inviting me to share my experience. I was the Architect Manager at the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, overseeing a team responsible for designing temporary infrastructures. Events typically utilize temporary structures like tents, cabins, and containers, as these are needed only for the duration of the event. Generally, these temporary activities do not require permanent construction, which is why standardized industrial elements are used.
For Paris 2024, the decision was made to maximize the use of existing buildings while creating additional spaces with temporary structures, also known as overlays. Approximately 95% of all structures for Paris 2024 were temporary. The design of these temporary structures follows the same principles as permanent structures, although they have their own specific technical requirements.
Q2: You worked for a year and a half in this position. Why is the temporary infrastructure defined at the last stage of the project?
Figueiredo: It has been two years in total. Temporary structures, often referred to as overlays, are typically additions to existing buildings or installed for a short period before being removed. I wouldn’t say that overlays are defined only in the final stages of a project; the need for a temporary infrastructure should be considered from the conceptual stage. Although overlays may appear to be merely supplementary, they are, in fact, essential components that fulfill all design requirements in terms of space.
More…
To read entire interview, click here
How to cite this work: Khelifi, Y. (2024). Project management helps make things happen, Interview with Adriana Figueiredo; PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue XI, December. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/pmwj147-Dec2024-Khelifi-Interview-with-Adriana-Figueiredo.pdf
About the Interviewer
Yasmina Khelifi
Paris, France
Yasmina Khelifi, PMP, PMI- ACP, PMI-PBA is an experienced project manager in the telecom industry. Along with her 20-year career at Orange S.A. (the large French multinational telecommunications corporation), she sharpened her global leadership skills, delivering projects with major manufacturers and SIM makers. Yasmina strives for building collaborative bridges between people to make international projects successful. She relies on three pillars: project management skills, the languages she speaks, and a passion for sharing knowledge.
She is a PMP certification holder since 2013, a PMI- ACP and PMI-PBA certification holder since 2020. She is an active volunteer member at PMI France and PMI UAE, and a member of PMI Germany Chapter. French-native, she can speak German, English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and she is learning Arabic. Yasmina loves sharing her knowledge and experiences at work, in her volunteers’ activities at PMI, and in projectmanagement.com as a regular blogger. She is also the host and co-founder of the podcast Global Leaders Talk with Yasmina Khelifi to help people in becoming better international leaders.
Yasmina can be contacted at https://yasminakhelifi.com/ or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasminakhelifi-pmp-telecom/
Visit her correspondent profile at https://pmworldlibrary.net/yasmina-khelifi/
To view other works by Yasmina, visit her author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/yasmina-khelifi/
