This dissertation describes the most relevant characteristics of the software construction methodology implemented by the P-RIO environment. This environment was built on the PVM platform, attempting to combine in a single system the high-level facilities for modularity, parallelization and graphic configuration of applications, and the portability offered by the virtual machine. The proposed methodology simplifies software maintenance, improving efficiency in the development process of distributed and parallel applications. Besides, the operation support offered by P-RIO allows users, with little training, to build relatively complex computational systems. The environment implementation includes a graphic interface and a configuration language, integrated to the system, that provide facilities for construction, debugging, and management of applications. Several examples of applications based on the P-RIO methodology are also presented.