This contribution gives an overview of current research in applying object oriented programming to scientific computing at the computational mechanics laboratory (LABMEC) at the school of civil engineering - UNICAMP. The main goal of applying object oriented programming to scientific computing is to implement increasingly complex algorithms in a structured manner and to hide the complexity behind a simple user interface. The following areas are current topics of research and documented within the paper: hp-adaptive finite elements in one-, two- and three dimensions with the development of automatic refinement strategies, multigrid methods applied to adaptively refined finite element solution spaces and parallel computing.365793807