Born in Luanda, he graduated in Architecture from Escola Superior de Belas Artes of Lisbon (1968), obtained a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from New York University (1971), and a PhD in Human Geography from Durham University (1995).

In 1975, he applied for a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the speciality of popular architecture and urbanism, with the aim of completing a research project on the architecture of Yemen and its urban structures, work that had begun in 1973 and 1974 during his stay in Sanaa as a UN volunteer, working as a technical advisor to the Urban Planning Department of the Ministry of Municipalities.

As part of his doctoral research, he returned to Yemen in 1983, 1986, 1990 and then in 2006, visiting the south and the eastern region of Hadhramaut, extending the collection to the entire continental area of the country.

In his work as an architect and urban planner in the United States, Arabia (in Yemen, Bahrain and Qatar) and Portugal, he became interested in the contextual use of traditional materials and their relationship with their natural environment, especially since his first mission with the UNDP in Yemen in 1973.

This interest led to extensive research on the subject in Yemen, Pakistan and Portugal, which resulted in the books Art of building in Yemen (1980, 2nd edition 2009), Terra e casas no Oeste (2009) and Mértola no Alengarve (2002), as well as various articles and presentations at national and international conferences.

Between 1986 and 2004 he was a four-time Technical Reviewer for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. As an architect, he is the author of restoration and new construction projects for private individuals and the public sector in Yemen, Qatar, Guinea-Conakry and Portugal, especially in the municipalities of Mértola, Alcoutim and Castro Marim.

He was an associate professor in the departments of Urbanism, Architecture and Geography at Universidade Lusófona (1996-2014).