He is a graduate of the University of São Paulo, where he also taught. Having been exposed to the realities of the construction site, he focuses particularly on questions of labour and the conditions of production. As a member of Arquitectura Nova, a radical architecture group which he formed with Flávio Império and Rodrigo Lefèvre, he critiqued Brazil's modernist impulses, which he viewed as excluding the vast majority of Brazilians who were living in poverty. The group took part in urban actions and proposed strategies that would democratise access to architecture, as well as the design and building processes. They described their work as creating an ʻaesthetics of povertyʼ and a ʻpoetics of economyʼ, envisioning a highly politicised approach to architecture. The Brazilian dictatorship later responded by exiling Ferro alongside his mentor, Vilanova Artigas, and his colleague Rodrigo Lefèvre.