CSI.São Paulo - Participants platform

OASE #77

2009-05-08T13:54:00.003-04:00

In the architectural journal of Oase #77 you can find a lot of interesting texts about public spaces and publicness. These are interesting for Nicola and me but maybe also for others. The title of this edition is Publieke plaatsen/Accomodating the Public.

@ Martine: one text is 'on pavements and other public groundscapes' by Ana Luz. I think this could be very interesting for you...

Studentproject for Favela of the Future

2009-05-08T13:45:00.003-04:00

A Brasilian friend of mine sent me an e-mail regarding a project of students at the UFMG for intervention in the favela of Serra, in Belo Horizonte. Since there were some people working on themes related to the favelas, this might be an interesting project.

Here is the e-mail. It's in Portuguese, so good luck ;-) let's see who still remembers some portuguese...

08/05/2009 - 12:00
As favelas do futuro
Por Chico Pedro
Uns estudantes da UFMG criaram um plano muito bacana para melhorar as condições dos favelados.

Aqui ninguém sabe que ele existe. Mas lá na Dinamarca forma premiados.

O link com algumas montagens e a explicação de uma parte desse plano é esse aqui:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=544410

Aliás, conforme diz-se no link…”recebeu menção honrosa num dos mais importantes concursos internacionais voltados para alunos de arquitetura”

Agora, pergunto?

Qual a dificuldade de se fazer algo do tipo pelo Brasil afora?

Estudantes da Arquitetura projetam “favela” do futuro
Imagine uma favela ocupada de forma mais ordenada, com mais áreas verdes e espaços de convivência, melhor servida de transporte e capaz de produzir alimentos, energia e empregos.

Esse é o cenário traçado pelo projeto Uma microcomunidade resolvendo problemas globais, elaborado por cinco estudantes de arquitetura da UFMG. O grupo, que se debruçou sobre a realidade do Aglomerado da Serra, em Belo Horizonte, recebeu menção honrosa num dos mais importantes concursos internacionais voltados para alunos de arquitetura.

O problema é só um: nossa insuportável falta de sensibilidade.

If you click on the link you will find more information on this project.

2009-04-16T15:38:00.004-04:00

...life next to Av. Agua Espraiada the landing of the new bridge.

Project Jan

2009-04-14T22:14:00.010-04:00

What I want to do is to make an urban collage of very different aspects of the city of Sao Paulo. I want to make clear that the city is build up from so many different elements, people, sounds, buildings, shapes, objects, places, that is impossible to grasp the under laying intension the phenomenon.

The main purpose of my project is to try to represent this, and to create awareness about this.

The medium I want to use is a (more or less) interactive medium that provides the possibility to explore the urban phenomenon. I do this by making a big web page.

In this webpage I insert:

A lot of overlapping images

Video fragments

Sound

Text

Here I post some examples of collages by Rauschenberg, who made a lot of collages:

On other interesting collage by Paul Citroen

Sketch that I made for my collage:

If you want to know more about the progress of my writings, please contact me.

addition to Rutgers weblog "How to advertise without words"

2009-04-14T19:45:00.003-04:00

This is what I found today in the city centre. Also a good example of advertising without words.

to get an idea...

2009-04-14T16:33:00.005-04:00

if you want to get an idea of how many cortiços there actually are, check this link and be shocked..

http://mapa.habisp.inf.br/maprender

click 'layers' in the top bar, then 'detalhes' of 'habitacão' in the left column, then 'cortiços' and they will appear in green.

INVITATION - SP Urban ART Exhibition

2009-04-14T14:34:00.003-04:00

the exhibition is about URBAN ART in São Paulo, and there will be exhibited all kind of urban interventions and urban related art, such as grafittis, video, apropriations, even poetry...and many more...

and even an artist from your country will be there, Carmen van der Vecht,

ever heard?

there will be some live performances in the opening day, April 15th,

the opening will be at 7p.m, performances probably will happen between this and 10 p.m., I believe....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GALERIA OLIDO

click to see the map

• A exposição Arte Urbana, com foco nas diversas vertentes de arte urbana paulista, reúne graffiti, sticker, lambe-lambes, apropriações, assemblages, vídeos, fotografias e poesia, entre outras manifestações.

Os artistas participantes são:

Alessandra Goya, Binho Ribeiro, Bonga, Célia Saito, Chã, coletivo Ocupeacidade, Danila Bustamante, Danilo Fernandes, Dingos, Graphis, Gejo, Gêmeas (Carolina e Isadora Krieger), Guto Lacaz, Jaime Prades, João Pimenta, Jullie Poslednik, Júlio Dojocsar, Mônica Jackson, Ota, Péricles Martins, Popó, Renato De Cara, Pastore, Rodoxxx, Rogério Cavalcanti, Sinval Garcia, Tathy, Vine e Wolpy. É mostrado ainda o projeto “Hambler”, da artista holandesa Carmen van der Vecht, que tem foco na moda direcionada a jovens moradores de rua. Na abertura da mostra ocorre uma performance de Andréa Guilhermina, Joaquim Lino, Lina Gomes e Brone Lozneanu. A curadoria é de Danilo Blanco e Fernando Zelman (de 15/04/09, às 19h, a 30/05/09).

ADRESS » Centro: Av. São João, 473,

tels. (11) 3331-7703 / 8399 e 3334-0001, r. 2006.

Ter. a sex., 12h/20h30; sáb. e dom., 13h/20h30.http://www.centrocultural.sp.gov.br

Squat!

2009-04-13T22:00:00.005-04:00

http://noticias.terra.com.br/brasil/interna/0,,OI3700154-EI8139-ABG,00.html

squatted ex-INSS (instituto nacional de siguranca siocial) building near 9 de julho that burned out a couple of years ago. the occupance was organized by the FLM (organized squatter movement) just started yesterday to put on political pressure. Tomorrow they will talk to representatives that are coming from Brasilia. Flavio, Marleen and I went to visit late this afternoon.

How to advertise without words?

2009-04-13T21:44:00.011-04:00

In 2006 the Municipality of Sao Paulo banned the use of written words and big billboards on façades. Since then, the commercial activities of Sao Paulo have been finding out new ways to continue advertising their products and services. So far I’ve identified 4 strategies:
- Claim a colour! Colours attract attention, so painting or cladding the entire façade of the building helps. Optional is to paint the sidewalk as well.
- Move! Use moving elements to attract attention. Human beings with flags also do the job.
- Depict! Instead of writing about the merchandise, visual signage can be made by painting on the façade or the shutters of the building.
- Open up! Make the building as open as possible to the street, so the inside merchandise is completely visible.
Is Sao Paulo changing from a city full of letters to a city full of colour?

Urban Think Tank / u-tt (only dutch)

2009-04-13T19:11:00.006-04:00

Interesting article on Archined about 'Informele stedenbouw'.

http://www.archined.nl/nieuws/april/informele-stedenbouw/

(only in dutch)

Een vrij recent artikel van een lezing van Urban Think Tank, die zij gegeven hebben op de Academie van Bouwkunst in Amsterdam. (Zij zijn ook bekend van die documentaire over Caracas.) Zeker de moeite waar om even te lezen.

When you you cannot read dutch and you want to know something about this very interesting office see there website:

http://www.u-tt.com/

...the true issue...

2009-04-13T13:17:00.001-04:00

“The true issue is not to make beautiful cities or well-managed cities, is to make a work of life. The rest is a by-product. But, making a work o f life is the privilege of historical action. How and through what struggles, in the course of what class action and what political battle could urban historical action be reborn? This is the question toward which we are inevitably carried by our inquiry into the meaning of the city.”

– Raymond Ledrut, “Speech and the Silence of the City”

Reverse graffiti

2009-04-13T11:25:00.000-04:00

via videosift.com

Informality and the question of Legitimacy Part 1

2009-04-13T06:24:00.000-04:00

The impressions of the first days and the discussions so far touch certain topics with very problematic discourses. When it comes to the informal city and its relation to formality, key concepts of equity, legitimacy, and tolerance gain a pivotal role in discussing the past and present conditions but also in formulating any future vision. An informal life seems less than before (if it indeed has ever been motivated by freedom) subject of a self-conscious expression or political nature but a process stemming out of necessity. Still informality as a surviving strategy has to answer to its legitimacy to certain extent. As formal provision is causal to informal service and production circles (houses, economy, services, etc.) society at large has tendency to take tolerant stances towards the informal city. But there is also another side to it Informal lives sometimes follow the logic of profit maximisation or is aimed to accelerate socio-economic accession. Particular problematic I trust are socio-economic layers of the population informal and formal spheres overlap. The lower middle class or higher strata of the poor could represent dimensions of possible frictions. If a household gains greater wealth by choosing (!) for informality the question of legitimacy arises for the comparable households paying taxes and higher charges by their formal lives. Regularization schemes must have been carefully applied. So far walking some areas of favelas indicated that their – if boldy put – has been partly wealth accumulation as well on the cost of the large urban community (and the tax payers)
Without the intention to elaborate on an argument my intention was to give another illustration that informality escapes any black white distinction. Informality is the safety net for the most marginal population groups but at the same time a source of market-distorted competition for some on the costs of others, with the open end of illegal and illicit practices, harming society at large.

2009-04-13T01:01:00.002-04:00

for those willing to improve the portuguese skills. at today's O Estado de S. Paulo, probably the biggest newspaper here, a two-page article on the cortiços. amongst other things, there's the discussion about the rise on the price per square meter on the cortiços. apparently, comparing rents, the price at the cortiços is higher than at formal rich neighborhoods such as Morumbi.
here goes the link, and if anyone is interested i can help (sort of) with the translation.

http://www.estadao.com.br/estadaodehoje/20090412/not_imp353477,0.php

Lina Bo Bardi - Sesc Pompei

2009-04-12T18:33:00.003-04:00

Today we (Bart, Martine, Rutger and Jan) visited the Sesc Pompei by Lina Bo Bardi. When you want to see a very interesting piece of architecture, go there. Beautifully designed.

I consider this building as dialogue between sensuality and brutalism.

It is free to enter and you can ask for a guided tour. (Go to the room on your right after entering the gate. Tell the person behind the desk that you study architecture. We didn't had to pay for it, but I don't know if this is normal or if we are very privileged.)

Intense Week

2009-04-12T18:20:00.003-04:00

Monday morning, a place called Cantinho do Céu, just an optimist name for what we called until that moment “favela”. Near Bilings reservoir, an artificial lake, and surrounding this place, an (in) formal area, a place where people bought some lot and without any infrastructure build their houses, self made house most of it.
The municipality is doing now what they call “urbanization”, paving the streets, sewage system, street lights and etc, giving them some minimal conditions of life, and surrounding the lake, there´s a project for a big public space, a park for the people.
Life is going on in this place, some children playing in the streets, people walking around, the corner´s bar open, an integration of neighbors, like a small city inside the city. Most of people works 2 or 3 hours far away by bus, but there are some that have little comercial points , where they sell the most necessary things.
Although the needs, people are really proud of their places, they work hard, brick by brick, so for them their houses is just like a little piece of heaven (cantinho do céu), and who are we to put their houses down, self made houses, with no technical support, but with strong symbolism for them. How does it feels to put you away from your house and put you inside a typological plan, that does mean anything, with 10 other blocks of apartments with no self identity.
All they have are they identity, how can we take them the only thing they have?
The contrasts, the huge shopping mall… the fake fans, the fake tree smell, the fake building, the fake green plants… An artificial place for flesh and bone people.
Fake -bright - flowers ou true -wilted- flowers?

Tuesday… Paraisópolis, again, a really positive name… The streets full of cars, people, a crowed place! So we take a tour from inside, and the landscape changes, the more inside you go, more it changes… The self made construction, the stairs, each one with their own design, but with the same materials, it get me to think if it´s their path to heaven (paraísopolis – city of heaven), the higher you go, near you get.
Cidade Tiradentes shows the sense of community… how it works and give them a meaning, and something to fight for. The project is really heavy, that kind of stamps that the municipality do, but it got a meaning when the people who lives in the place worked hard to build that. This bring them the sense of identity, a sentimental value more important that this money value. Just sorry for the fences…
Wednesday afternoon… Alphaville, an island totally apart of the city. An artificial world, with fake architecture. Jails.
Viglieca lecture… “Search for hypotheses besides the design”
Thursday… Lecture at Sehab, intenses discussion about the projects. They are searching ways, understanding that the municipality have to deal with many problems… But do they discuss the projects, architectural theorys? Sometimes it seems they are fifty years behind the contempopary discussions. Although from Cingapura and the destruction of hundred houses they are going forward, searching news ways... The project of apartments... it led me to think... if they don´t create a private feeling in the place - as they tried , will the residents build fences around it?
Cortiços. Human beings living with no minimal conditions, no water, no bathrooms, no private spaces. 5, 8, 9 years in this condition, it is something unimaginable… So far they get used to it, and stop fighting for...

agenda

2009-04-12T17:25:00.005-04:00

Monday.Besides all the specifics regarding city insertion, infrastructure, function, adequacy of the architecture, I observed another fundamental difference between cantinho do céu and the fancy shopping mall we visited. The two spaces establish opposite relations with the existing water. In cantinho, the future linear park project turns buildings and population to the water reservoir, providing attenuation of the environmental damages, and the possibility of controlled leisure utilization. Nature being rescued as part of the city tissue and urban life. On the other hand, the design of pq cidade jardim goes on the contrary intention, showing clear interest in avoiding the river+highway. The built complex turns itself to its own center, thus defining the inner atrium as a simulacrum of public space and rejecting the river. Tuesday.Both Paraisópolis and Jardim Pantanal are areas within the formal city and lack of basic infrastructure as proper sewer systems, water+energy distribution, and basic equipments. The first consolidated using the grid and city insertion of an unoccupied area that had been lotted in the 20’s, shockingly in contrast with the adjacent neighborhood of Morumbi, one of the richest of SP. the latter developed in the outskirts of the city, in the eastern region, a peripheral area at the margins of Tietê river. In spite of precarious conditions people were always nice and warm, inviting us to their houses, their lives, their struggle, leaving us the feeling of their necessity to be visible. Wednesday.And we went to vigliecca & associados, one of the most interesting architecture offices in São Paulo. Héctor Vigliecca is from Uruguay, but has been working in Brazil since the middle 70’s. His discourse is based on the defense of professional ethics and quality in establishing relations between public and private spatiality. For him, architecture should maintain its social role by keeping legibility and precision in defining spaces, allowing controlled expansion of the spaces without the loss of identity and citizenship. Héctor believes in the strength of representation as an instrument to reassure the role of the architect. Even though he is a constant partner of the municipality, in the proposals for many precarious areas as Paraisópolis and Heliópolis, not always his projects are followed in essence, as we’ve seen in Paraisópolis. Thursday.Now we had the opportunity of confronting Vigliecca’s discourse with the municipality discourse. On one side, the architect’s will of a project for the city, as seen with his empathic proposal for Paraisópolis. On the other, the municipality’s defense for the neo-liberal city, saying that everyone has choices and it’s not up to city hall to intervene in the convictions of the inhabitants of Paraisópolis, by proposing buildings they don’t agree with, despite their qualities. As a result we have the municipality’s project we’ve visited, that even though includes dwelling, infrastructure improvement and the construction of health and education equipments, do not reverse the lack of connection with the formal city. Afterwards, we went to visit some cortiços and everyone, including Brazilians, got really impressed of the sub-human condition people are living in, despite the smiles on their faces. Its ashaming how everyone gets used to precariousness.

Inflatable Informality

2009-04-11T09:45:00.003-04:00

What we see here is maybe the most basic principle of making a shelter to sleep, obtained by making use of a plastic sheet, and the warm air that is blown in the air through the grating of the metro. This scene is photographed in the city centre of Sao Paulo on a large public square. Interesting to see is how people start to ‘steel’ little parts of the public space to create a temporary shelter. This is something to think about when we speak of ‘public’ space. It can be conceived as very public because there is the possibility to make a public space ‘private’ for a certain period of time. (Without romanticizing the phenomenon itself.)

Traveling everyday

2009-04-11T00:54:00.006-04:00

On Jardim Pantanal (second day), we had the opportunity to get in real touch with some settlers, and were invited to have a cup of coffe and some bolachas with a very friendly family on their own house. The father (I forgot his name) told me something that I could’t get out of my mind: he works in São Bernardo do Campo (a municipality that is part of the ABC, the industrial heart of the metropolitan area of São Paulo), and spends no less that 3 hours daily to go and 3 hours to come back: at least during six hours of his day he is commuting. He also told me that he leaves his home at 4 am and comes back at 8 pm: not much is left for him to be with his family or to rest. He is a plumber and probably doesn’t earn much money: nevertheless, he has built himself a nice, decent and big house during many years to shelter his family through his hard work.

That is one of the most terrible sides of São Paulo: the long journeys that most common people have to take from far-away and poor neighborhoods to the most central areas where are all the services and all the jobs. This is an expression of the center-periphery dynamics which has been the main characteristic of the urbanization process in São Paulo during the XX century. Here is a map by GoogleMaps showing an ideal route from Jardim Pantanal to São Bernardo by public transport, just to illustrate how hard it is to commute for many of the residents of the metropolis in the lack of an efficient mass-transportation system.

Accessibility and Segregation

2009-04-10T22:58:00.003-04:00

In how far does the complex convoluted building structure of for example Paraisopolis that is vertically only accessible through steep stairs discriminate disabled or elderly people? May this say medivial urban setting create certain age group concentration within more/less accessible parts of the 100 by 200m blocks? Might be interesting to take into consideration for the group of Dan and Jasper.

SOME PICTURES FROM ABOVE

2009-04-10T21:20:00.008-04:00

These pictures were taken from the book São Paulo Metrópole, by Regina Meyer, Marta Dora Grostein (she was with us during our visit to Cantinho do Céu) and Ciro Biderman. They give us a different perspective about the streets and alleys of São Paulo's informal settlements.

Cantinho do Céu and Jardim Gaivota: informal, poor and precarious occupation on the southern part of São Paulo, an area that should be preserved for its environmental fragility and strategic importance for the whole metropolitan area.

Cantinho do Céu: the strip which will be transformed in a linear park on the Billings reservoir shore through a slum upgrading program. On the back, the power lines that separate that community from the rest of the (informal) city.

Jardim Pantanal on the eastern part of the municipality of São Paulo: note how it's settled on the Tietê river lowland area of environmental protection (APA-Tietê), which for many years was a problem for the residents who had to get along with the floods every year. This is one of the poorest slums in São Paulo, and lacks all kinds of basic urban services and regular infra-structure.

Paraisópolis-Morumbi: the worldwide famous contrast between the rich neighborhood and the poor and informal huge slum. Physical proximity combined with extreme social distance. It’s (hardly) possible to observe the original regular grid that crosses the highly dense settlement.

Thoughts of a brain-dead

2009-04-10T07:51:00.004-04:00

Thoughts of a brain-dead

After four days of CSI Sao Paulo my mind is spinning and I finally want to sit down to write some reflections on my experience so far - day by day. And I am trying organising my thoughts but it is not much there.
And I am thinking of what I have seen while my mind is still trying to remember at least one of the names of the people how has guided us to day to the Cortico’s … all these clean laundry …you see it everywhere.

Maria I think was the name from one of the handful people who brought us to the Cortico’s and was also showing us around. In an old industrial round down building people, the poorest of the pore, are renting space to live with there families. 46 families, if I remember right, are living in self constructed separations in the inside of these buildings. I am amazed by the cleanliness and the necessity for decoration thus you see a lot of very nice details, and of course the clean laundry, ...lots of it!
You see happy and energetic kids, beautiful. There is a lot of music too; the atmosphere is relaxing but I can still not relieve tension.

The day before (day three) we have been to Alphaville, a gated community of wealthy people. It was hard to enter that era even we had an appointment, everything was excellent organised and planed like the registration of our passport numbers. But they found something to make it even a bit more complicated; so we had to wait. After all we where allowed to enter - guided, but we did not get permission to walk around freely. This was so fare the only housing area where I have seen no laundry drying outside.

On day two we have been to Paraisopolis. I have been in the subgroup which was focusing on public while walking through the neighbourhood. The public is basically the street. The stairs in front of the house the main street with its bars and shops is where the people gather. Like in most informal neighbourhoods the build structure is very dense. However you see a again the laundry and based on the lag of space the laundry is dominating the scenery in the public. I have been impressed to see a self organised primary school which is according to our guide even financed by the community.

On day one I was placed in the subgroup with the topic “formal-informal economy”. The first place of informal housing we visited was Cantinho do Ceu.
The main streets where like usually the most activity is, in public live as well as in economy, we only got to see from the car. The times we stopped have been a kind of short to only nearly getting a picture of how the economy works, unfortunately.
In the afternoon we visited the extreme opposite side of the economy world, Parque Cidade Jardim, a fancy shopping mall with upper class housing on top of it. Here in Parque Cidade Jardim I had for the first time the feeling not to know where I feel more out of place – in the informal or the formal (?).

In conclusion Sao Paulo is a diverse city, something we knew before. New to me was the experience, also if people where looking at us in the informal neighbourhoods as well as in the upper class areas, that I felt welcome in Cantinho do Ceu, Paraisopolis and in the Cortico’s. Here people where smiling though they where not in Parque Cidade Jardim or Alphaville.
… so fare.

Paraisopolis materialised

2009-04-10T03:20:00.006-04:00

The organic growth of the settlement of Paraisopolis can be found in all its successive stages. People settle starting with the materials that are less durable and easiest to get. Wood and metallic panels dominate the newest parts. The next step in improving the house is to add shutters and doors.
In the case of paraisopolis, the most common initial types are aluminium shutters wooden panel doors. Successively properly produced doors and glass windows are added. The panel materials might also be painted or covered in slurry coating. Perforated bricks are the next step, substituting the panel materials.
When the addition of an upper floor is desired, concrete columns are cast in between bricks and a cast concrete or a prefab metallic staircase is added as well. The upper floor is made using prefabricated floor beams (similar to a part of a Dutch breedplaatvloer), in between which either polystyrene foam or ceramic bricks are placed, and on top of which concrete is cast.
The later succession in the favela materialisation is the addition of better windows and doors, the cladding of the facade with tiles or stucco, and much more various elements such as balcony railings and facade systems. Eventually, whole buildings might be substituted by concrete cast buildings.

Within the whole neighbourhood, we can see this entire succession of materials going from the initial stages in the lower, risky or lateral areas, to the most developed and sometimes even formal building along the high streets that are part of the 200 x 100 m grid. Over here we can find eventually the extraordinary designs of the Assemblea de Deus church buildings and more consolidated economic activities.

Day 2 07/04/09 Paraisópolis

Muito legal!!!

2009-04-10T03:00:00.000-04:00

Eagerly taking risks

2009-04-10T02:53:00.006-04:00

When visiting the favelas of Sao Paulo perspectives are changing. Influence of the media play a big role in this world of slums, they actually control the first expectations of the visitor. But what they actually show is just a small piece of the whole. The problems, poverty and crime rates of these irregular communities are always addressed and shown to the outside world. Entering a favela is risky business. The truth is clouded in a way, or at least not shown as a whole. The only time this image of favela appeared was at the visit of a part of Paraisopolis (07-04-200, day 2 of the workshop program), I would like to address this as the ‘Phase One’ and actually call it slum. This phase is characterised by the haste of the invasion of a certain area. Houses are constructed of wooden walls that can barely hold their own weight and sheets of corrugated material as a roof. The word temporary is written all over it, in three to six months these ‘Phase One’ parts of favelas are transforming slowly in a different kind of area. When the inhabitants decide to stay and convert their hut into a house that has a better resistance and a better adaption concerning the surrounding area. This I will call ‘Phase Two’, an intermediate state in the evolvement of the favela where provisionally is tried to maintain a water network and sometimes a sewer system. But ‘Phase Three’ is were it gets interesting. The municipality and private companies or the community itself start to interfere and create opportunities were there first were problems. For their own benefits or not, this means an upgrading of the neighbourhood, and here a new kind of angle of looking at these neighbourhoods is created. A new truth you might say. Such interventions are for example to be seen in Pantanal (07-04-2009, day 2 of the workshop program) where the community has created an arts and crafts centre for entertainment and education of new generations. When visiting a ‘Phase Three’ favela these kinds of projects are shown and create a different perspective on the area. It seems that poverty and crime do not exist here; people are proud of what they have and are eagerly to show this (also luxury goods as washing machines and televisions are present). This is on the one hand very logical, when someone is visiting Amsterdam you would like to show him or her the richness of the city, the beautiful sights and the pieces you are proud of (For example the city centre with its canals, and not the ‘Bijlmer’ with his metro). This also happened in Cantinho do Ceu (06-04-2009, day 1 of the workshop program) were big houses and relatively good infrastructure was shown (lots of 5m x 25m, and dwellings of three stories high!). On the other hand this is showing a kind of truth that is also not complete. A dilemma for the outsider is created and the risk of taking a wrong point of view is rising. Are these people really happy or living in fear for any particular reason? During the lectures and discussion at SEHAB (09-04-2009, day 4 of the workshop program) it became clear that the fear of being removed from your house is a fear that should not exist. SEHAB is trying to avoid houses to be demolished and inhabitants of invaded areas are offered a new dwelling or a compensating amount of money if their house is on the list to be demolished. Which is considered to be strange because of the illegal background of the settlement and the risk that people apparently are willing to take when living in these kinds of areas. It seems that SEHAB is not fighting the problem this way but stimulating it in some strange way. But at least they are trying and not hiding behind an electric fence, like people who live in communities like Alphaville (08-04-2009, day 3 of the workshop program). It is strange to see that these people seem so afraid that they are willing to give up a part of their privacy for more security. But what is live without a little bit of risk?

Reflection first week

2009-04-10T02:28:00.008-04:00

Day 1, Monday, 06-04-2009 Cantinho de Céu, Parque Cidade Jardim

The presentation of Violeta Joana Barros with the suggestion to make the protected zone a green zone, was interesting,. Though I doubt if this proposal would work like presented. The green zone all the way on the coast doesn’t look like the most original idea to solve the problem, but just one of the obvious solutions.

Afterwards we went to the Informal settlement, Favela, Cantinho de Céu, and the proposed green zone. I was so impressed to see how big the contrast is between the city center and this part of São Paulo. The houses didn’t look that bad and the streets where wide and good.
The bigger the contrast got when we went to the shopping mall. This wasn’t one of the shopping malls as we know in the Netherlands. The defenition“public space” can not be used for this building. It was a closed community mall which only can be entered with a car after a strict security check.

Day 2, tuesday 07-04-2009 Paraisopolis, Social Housing project

We went to one of the biggest informal settlements of São Paulo, Paraisapolis. The more we got closer the more I got shocked. I expected it to be like I saw on pictures, though the reality is even harder. When we entered the narrow streets and started walking, the shock disappeared and I started to see more details. The people we met on street were cautious but friendly. In the center we could see more of the daily life in Paraisopolis.

The social housing project we visited late in the afternoon was interesting to see. Here we could see a good initiative to solve informal housing. The apartments were small but relative good for the price. We got to see two examples of the apartments. The inhabitants were really happy with this ‘opportunity’ as they called it theirselfs.

Day 3, Wednesday 08-04-2009 Alpha Ville, Conjunto National

Unlike the Formal settlement which we visited the first two days, on the third day we visited one of the ‘rich’ neighbourhoods, Alpha Ville. Again the shock was big but didn’t turn into something positive. To enter this neighbourhood we had to pass gates like if it was customs. The streets were empty and the environment was unlike the Favelas cold.
Every step we made was registered. The huge park was beautiful to see, though it looked abandoned.
We also went to Conjunto National on which we had a real good view to São Paulo city.

Day 4, Thursday 09-04-2009 Lectures at SEHAB, visit to Praça José Luis de Mello Malhei

Lectures where not that interesting, though very interactive. The whole group had a lot of comment on the lectures. Also the proposal/plan as shown didn’t impress me. I don’t think the solution is just removing existing housing, putting a few new blocks, and making a public space. The problem of informal housing needs more attention and a lot of analyses.
Afterwards we visited the streets of Estudantes. Estudantes is for me an impressive good ‘hotspot’ to revitalize. This part of the city is important, but with the years it has lost its value. I believe there’s a lot of potential in this area.
From the streets of Estudantes we crossed the street to go to the viaduct. Here we visited the area of the homeless. I was surprised how well this part under the viaduct is maintained. The use of the public space by a group of people made the space a place for them.

The other side of the viaduct is a company that collects and sorts waste to recycle. Here the people where happy with the work they’re doing, though the space created to make working possible doesn’t look really nice. I believe that the space is good used as it is now, but the potentials of this area is rather more then function as a waste sorting area.

VIEWING THE CITY SÁO PAULO

2009-04-10T02:25:00.003-04:00

Day 1 [6th of April]

View 06-04-2009 First Week CSI Sao Paulo in a larger map

Cantinho do ceu

First day with the group we went to a Project where SEHAB was working on the slum Cantinho de Ceu this was a slum what was directly beside a lake off the region off Sao Paulo therefore it is very strange there are slums and not more luxury's housing. A hypnotise is that 25 years ago the place was far away from the city with a bad infrastructure. Knowing this is a Good location the question is how long the Slum is staying here and is replace with luxury's housing, therefore maybe it is not really a good thing there is a new infrastructure thru where the Housing rates are going up.

Interesting thing also is the way the are trying to make a park at the border off the lake, this way there is a buffer between the lake and the houses so when the water is higher the housing will not be floated, off course this is a good thing but people how where living there are now moved away hopefully in the same favela. Making a way to witstand this floats are also a good alternative example good be a embankment or housing on columns or higher ground.

TECHNICAL ANGLE

Housing block off 25x5 metre
Building typology :

1á2 building stories hight
Concrete columns with brick fillings
some housing is plastered and than also painted
windows and fencing are commen
electricity is present
water, sewerage is present or being build

Day 2 [7th of April]

View 07-04-2009 First week CSI Sao Paulo in a larger map

Paraisopolis
Ceu of Pantanal
Jardim Pantanal

Day Two was also a day that where going to a favales "Paraisopolis" this is one or maybe the biggest slum off Sao Paulo. Also there SEHAB is doing more than one project, mostly to try to make the infrastucture better but when it is nessesay there will be a social housing project for people how can not be (re)located inside off the favela.

Interested was that were a interfention was made the houses where directly inproved, here you can see people are getting more convinced the there will be not demolished. This part of the favela is the "older" part is now 25 years old and evolved, inhabitants are still improving and decorating there homes but building is not very common in this part. on the other side of the favela is a new site with the first settlements of wood and steel wave plate, this place is the last to occupy because off risk off flooding.

TECHNICAL ANGLE

site I
1á2á3 building stories hight
Concrete columns with brick fillings
some housing is plastered and than also painted
electricity, water is present
sewerage is on the moment getting build

site II
1 storie buildings
Wood and steel waveplates
no flooring
no doors or windows
no infrastructure

Day 3 [8th of April]

Alphaville
Conjunto National

After 2 interesting lectures in the morning we went to a place called alphaville this is a "little" city and is a more seen concept of dwelling called Gated Community's the strange thing is that it is a world up side down the people how are supposed to be free are behind fences and the "unsafe" people walking freely outside the fence, this concept is a reaction a the great money differences where the rich people are becoming scared of humans that are not the same as there one. the neighborhood wasn't that spectectulare only that there were only villa's off 2 / 3.000.000 Real. the more important part was the gate where standing for 30 min. before we could enter the City. After the City where went to a private shopping mall with same concept as the city interesting is when you can get inside and when your not allowed after this we had a very nice building visit at the Contunto with a overview off the city.

Day 4 [9th of April]

Lectures at SEHAB
Downtown visit

A Lecture from Elisabette Franca about the different kinds off slum was interesting but was really off viewing point of the SEHAB People and governementeel thinking therefore there was little room for discussion, the social housing there were presenting was in the typology off the 70' of the Netherlands. In the afternoon we had a excursion underneath the highway viaducts where there where 3 project one was a social come to getter and recycling cooperation's.

Seeing Sao Paulo from a different perspective

2009-04-10T02:11:00.002-04:00

Day 01
Who’s planning?

Fast growth of the city fabric in the last century has led to an unstructured urban organization, in which major parts of the fabric have long been neglected by planning institutions. Where housing policies fail, the people that are not facilitated by these policies come in to action and start building a city for their own. It has been clear that not acknowledging this kind of urbanism is not an option. These people are as much Paulistanas as are the people living in the developed city. It surprised me to see how people without the support of municipality have proven to be creative enough to fulfill their needs, although they are not the needs that we think of as priorities. Start from scratch, build what you need, expand when necessary and improve when possible. These people have built a city of their own within a city that has not let them become true citizen. All they need now is to get connected: logistically, economically and finally, socially.

Day 02
The pursuit of happiness.

Paraisopolis impressed me a lot, having grown into this organic structure with alleys like veins that go where the sunlight can not. Again it was clear that achieving a proper sewage has not been possible without the support of municipality. Lack of hygiene and education has not diminished the people’s eagerness to improve their own situation, while accepting their fate. Later that day this became even more evident when we visited a social housing project, built by the inhabitants theirselves. It took them 12 years to finally be able to move in, but this made them even more proud of their success. Working every day and building every weekend have given them the opportunity to become part of the public. Obviously, only few people are helped in an inefficient way but if there is one thing that has proven to be true it is the inexhaustible willingness of man to pursue their own happiness.

Day 03
The gate to where?

The contrast couldn’t be any bigger between the favelas we have visited on the first 2 days and the gated community of Alphaville. But besides being opposites when it comes to their economical and social situation there are also similarities. Both favela and gated community are impossible to penetrate when you are not invited. There is no space for intruders. If there is one thing that would perfectly describe the closedness of the gated community of Alphaville it was the big hassle we experienced when we tried to pass the gate, even when invited. And for what reason? Who wants to live in a place with deserted streets and where you know your neighbour by car anyway?

Day 04
The unprivatized public.

You have bad living conditions and bad living conditions. And then you have cortiços. Seeing the favelas was impressive but their inhabitant’s acceptance of their situation and their joy and positiveness made me get used to the idea of living in a slum sooner than expected. Nothing compared to the lives of the people that live in the unused building in the inner city. With the commercial center and rich cultural investments right across the street, or right next to the highway that takes hundreds of thousands of people from their work and leisure to their safe homes, few people know the unbearable conditions these people face every day. Private empty space has been intruded by the public that can’t afford their privateness. A revolution? No, like us they deal with the flaws of our private housing market. Having no other place to stay, owners of these properties on valuable locations ask prices that in no way resemble the environment they offer in return. If anywhere, here it’s time to take control and intervene.

VIEWING THE CITY SÁO PAULO

2009-04-10T02:01:00.003-04:00

Day 1 [6th of April]

Cantinho do ceu

First day with the group we went to a Project where SEHAB was working on the slum Cantinho de Ceu this was a slum what was directly beside a lake off the region off Sao Paulo therefore it is very strange there are slums and not more luxury's housing. A hypnotise is that 25 years ago the place was far away from the city with a bad infrastructure. Knowing this is a Good location the question is how long the Slum is staying here and is replace with luxury's housing, therefore maybe it is not really a good thing there is a new infrastructure thru where the Housing rates are going up.

Interesting thing also is the way the are trying to make a park at the border off the lake, this way there is a buffer between the lake and the houses so when the water is higher the housing will not be floated, off course this is a good thing but people how where living there are now moved away hopefully in the same favela. Making a way to witstand this floats are also a good alternative example good be a embankment or housing on columns or higher ground.

TECHNICAL ANGLE

Housing block off 25x5 metre

Building typology :

1á2 building stories hight

Concrete columns with brick fillings

some housing is plastered and than also painted

windows and fencing are commen

electricity is present

water, sewerage is present or being build

Day 2 [7th of April]

Paraisopolis
Ceu of Pantanal
Jardim Pantanal

Day Two was also a day that where going to a favales "Paraisopolis" this is one or maybe the biggest slum off Sao Paulo. Also there SEHAB is doing more than one project, mostly to try to make the infrastucture better but when it is nessesay there will be a social housing project for people how can not be (re)located inside off the favela.

Interested was that were a interfention was made the houses where directly inproved, here you can see people are getting more convinced the there will be not demolished. This part of the favela is the "older" part is now 25 years old and evolved, inhabitants are still improving and decorating there homes but building is not very common in this part. on the other side of the favela is a new site with the first settlements of wood and steel wave plate, this place is the last to occupy because off risk off flooding.

TECHNICAL ANGLE

site I

1á2á3 building stories hight

Concrete columns with brick fillings

some housing is plastered and than also painted

electricity, water is present

sewerage is on the moment getting build

site II

1 storie buildings

Wood and steel waveplates

no flooring

no doors or windows

no infrastructure

Day 3 [8th of April]

Alphaville
Conjunto National

After 2 interesting lectures in the morning we went to a place called alphaville this is a "little" city and is a more seen concept of dwelling called Gated Community's the strange thing is that it is a world up side down the people how are supposed to be free are behind fences and the "unsafe" people walking freely outside the fence, this concept is a reaction a the great money differences where the rich people are becoming scared of humans that are not the same as there one. the neighborhood wasn't that spectectulare only that there were only villa's off 2 / 3.000.000 Real. the more important part was the gate where standing for 30 min. before we could enter the City. After the City where went to a private shopping mall with same concept as the city interesting is when you can get inside and when your not allowed after this we had a very nice building visit at the Contunto with a overview off the city.

Day 4 [9th of April]

Lectures at SEHAB

Downtown visit

A Lecture from Elisabette Franca about the different kinds off slum was interesting but was really off viewing point of the SEHAB People and governementeel thinking therefore there was little room for discussion, the social housing there were presenting was in the typology off the 70' of the Netherlands. In the afternoon we had a excursion underneath the highway viaducts where there where 3 project one was a social come to getter and recycling cooperation's.

Eyes that look - but cannot see

2009-04-10T00:30:00.003-04:00

How to say something in 600 words about a phenomenon that has no language? How to write about something that has a system that exists out of thousands of systems? How to bring it back to a collection of words, when it can only can be experienced by the subjective presence of the individual? How to say something significant when you don’t see a basic framework in which it operates? How to judge the extremes; both rich and poor when they are so far from your own reality?

We could purpose to isolate some details from the whole, but will things become more clear when they are detached from their complex environment? Is it still legitimate to keep using research methods that we use for Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Zurich – urban situations that are part of a complete different kind of reality? And what to think of economic, political, social, historical, and cultural parameters?

These are questions that I asked myself before, they form for an important part the reason why I joined this workshop. Not that I think that I will leave with answers, but I hope to enlarge my awareness on these subjects. (I think that already happened in a way.)

Before I went to Sao Paulo I read some books by the Italian novelist Italo Calvino. I started to read his work because it can be seen as an ultimate struggle to describe things that are in fact impossible to describe. Through many of his writings the fascination for complex phenomena in science, nature and daily life becomes clear. For example the endless motion of the sea, the smell of nineteenth century Paris, or the star-spangled sky. It is not surprising that also urbanity is a theme that plays an essential role in his writings. For him the city is a symbol to ‘express the tension between geometric rationality and the entanglements of human life.’ In the book Mr. Palomar he writes an amazing chapter about that complexity of the roof landscape of Rome. To illustrate his way of looking at the world I give a part of the particular chapter:

“The true form of the city is in this rise and fall of roofs, old tiles and new, curved and flat, slender or squat chimneys, arbors of reed matting and sheds of corrugated iron, railings, balustrades, little columns supporting pots, metal watertanks, dormers, glass skylights, and rising above all else the rigging of TV aerials, straight or crooked, enamelled or rusting, in models of successive generations, variously ramified and horned and shielded, but all of them thin as skeletons and disturbing as totems. (…) pipescaffoldings of constructions in progress or left half-finished; large windows with curtains and little WC windows; ochre wall and burn sienna walls, walls with the colour of mold from whose crevice clump of weeds spill their pendulous foliage (…) great mansions which have decayed into hovels, hovels restructured into smart bachelor apartments; domes that make round outlines against the sky in every direction and at every distance as if to confirm the female, Junoesque essence of the city (…)”

In his attempt to grasp the of only the roof landscape he uses an enumeration that is four times longer than I have give. But even this impressive, very detailed description fails when he tries to find the essences of what he sees. On the end of the chapter he writes:

“(…) the panorama of the surface is already so vast and rich and various that it more than suffices to saturate the mind with information and meanings. (…) It is only after you have come to know the surface of the things, (…) that you venture to seek what is underneath. But the surface is inexhaustible.”

This is exactly the feeling that I had, standing on the helicopter platform, overlooking a sea of light. Driving in the dazzling traffic, a polluting motion that never stops. Walking in the endless labyrinth of the favela’s, stone, stone, stone, mud, corrugated iron.

Under this inexhaustible surface we find the entanglement of human life. The everyday practiser in its very diversity: Alphaville – Louis Vuitton, Cortiços – childeren in underware, and everything that is in between.

And I am the sightseer, with eyes that look, but do not see.

“I was blind but now I see.”

I want to ‘walk’ through Sao Paulo with three different eyes: the architectonic eye, the artistic eye, and the photographical eye.

This means:

‘The architectonic eye’ is the eye that I open to see the city as a student architecture, an eye that is aware of the build environment, shapes, materials, technology and public space.

‘The artistic eye’ looks for urban phenomena that are difficult to map by the usual instruments of the architects and urban planners by naming and describing. It goes beyond drawing and statistics, techniques that are marked by abstraction.

‘The photographical eye’ is freezing and framing the rapid and complex life in the city. It tells a story by a collage of flashes and fragments.

view at Sao Paulo

2009-04-10T00:28:00.006-04:00

“The Church of the poor”
The title already expose what stroked me on the first day. During the trip to Cantinho de Ceu a lot of churches passed in review. Although most of the pictures I made are of the local houses, the church stands out here in some way. Mostly you see at least 3 or 4 of them around one favela. I think everyone could understand that poor people stick to the churches because the church tries to help. But there is also another side. We’re not talking about the traditional churches. These churches (often Protestants) tend to lack of bible teaching and reject book learning, but they do have a lot of legalistic rules, strong authoritarian leadership and most of all try to brainwash or “better said” healing worship ..Not a very healthy characteristic seems to me. Another point why this is so striking is because of the materialization. Paulistanos in the poorer areas seem to be real builders. Each dwelling in the favela has the possibility to extend and preferably using many different kind of materials. Colored tiles, paint, metal gates etc. The church though is often white, made out of a few materials and glass colored windows. Funny fact is that this ‘sober’ church is paid by the same people that try to upgrade their own house
Day 1 06-04-09 Cantinho de Ceu & Parque Cidade Jardim

Patterns and colors in the Paraisopolis favela
Although women are not really famous for their navigation qualities, I guess that most people would get lost after entering Paraisopolis for the first time. After 5 minutes of walking in narrow streets and some kind of cross points I was wondering how I would ever get back to my starting point without the help of my guide. Nevertheless I believe there are some characteristics in this area with, which I could “survive” my second time in this favela. First of all, Paraisopolis is surrounded by the rich area Morumbi. This means that it is almost unavoidable to see one of the skyscrapers on the boundaries of the favela. I could have the chance of finding one of the main roads which is crowded with people and small shops (where you can pay with credit card!) or find one of the present phone boxes to call my friend to help me out. But once you are grabbed in the middle of Paraisopolis the best thing that you could probably do is look at the richness of colors. Each house seems to have a different color, graffiti can be found on the walls and ‘clean’ laundry is drying in the streets. Maybe this diversity will help you orientating.
Day 2 07-04-09 Paraisopolis

Gated between the rich people
After 2 days of seeing slums and illegal settlements it’s now time for ‘the shiny side’. Although I doubt a bit of the shininess when we walk through the park of Alphaville. Such an incredibly large area completely empty. You could almost imagine that the guard is a better friend than your own neighbor! Fortunately we also experienced the ultimate freedom on the top of Conjunto Nacional. What a view! Here you see the dynamic of the city. Cars moving from one side of the city to the other. The rhythm of the facades of the tall buildings. You would almost forget the street level that brings you the image of segregation, by the presence of gates and guards.
Day 3 08-04-09 Alphaville, Conjunto Nacional & Vigliecca

Welcome to the city favela
Today we went back to SEHAB, the organization that helps people with social housing projects. Absolutely a nice purpose to upgrade certain poor areas but isn’t it to difficult to do that all on your own? What stroked me in the projects is that the areas are getting more protected according as the site upgrades. Not yet at a level of guards but a certain distinction is made between the ‘real’ favela people and the new social housing inhabitants. Is this were real segregation starts? One of the most intense experiences were you don’t see this division yet are the city favelas. The situation is far from comfortable but at least seems that the community lives happily together. It would be nice to upgrade also the standards for them in a good way.
day 4 09-04-09 SEHAB & corticos

My first week in Sao Paulo

2009-04-09T23:46:00.007-04:00

Continho de Cue and Parque Cidade Jardim
Looking for art, in Continho de Cue there wasn’t as much art as I expected. There was some graffiti, but mostly tags or pixacao (text), off course used as a way to express yourself.
I was pleasantly surprised about the quality of the infrastructure. They really have all they need, water, electricity, a sewage and good roads. Everyone seemed happy. We met a man in a suit, (wondering why he was wearing the suit), who lived in a newly painted house with a little front yard and some flowers. He was wearing the suit because he went to the bank and wanted to look good. He was very happy with his house, and very proud. Far more happy than the people we saw at the super luxurious shopping mall Parque Cidade Jardim.

Paraisopolis
Paraisopolis was amazing to see. At first I felt a little unpleasant walking there like tourist, but everyone was actually very nice. I liked the coziness of the streets and houses, and I was surprised by the many children on the streets.
There were many drawings of children on the walls, and graffiti in the public places. Also the shops all paint their own windows. The public space in Paraisopolis, like the street with all the shops, was nicer than I would thin, it works great as Paraisopolis’ centre.
The social housing project looks very different, but these people also build their own houses. The people build in the weekend and pay for workers during the week. It takes many years, but now they have their own very good looking house, in a good neighborhood.

IAB, Alphaville and Conjunto National
Though the lectures were nice, I was really amazed by the poor maintenance of the IAB building.

Alphaville was… well alphaville. Many large houses, very little people, so when you’re making a stroll trough the park you’ll meet… well, no one. What bothered me most was the fact that no one could visit unannounced, so no surprise visits. No surprises at all, everything is strictly organized, how boring. It’s almost not possible to compare it with Paraisopolis.
The view from the top of Conjunto National was breathtaking, When you see this big city, with all the expensive high rise, it’s hard to imagine there are also so many favelas.

Estudentes
While walking under the highways we saw all kinds of graffiti art. I am really impressed by the art of the artists named ‘os gemeos’ (the twins), they make more subtle graffiti art mixed with text. They are well known, not only in Sao Paulo, and have been asked for many expositions. Often using the graffiti to reflect the things they see and hear in the city and on TV.
The sort of homeless shelter under the highway, where we went to with Erik, was a really nice use of the once useless space, and it looked good too.

I was sort of convinced that if you live in these creative dwellings (made of all kind of materials) like in Paraisopolis, they would also decorate it more. I think creativity in any way should be stimulated so that children rather want to be creative than turn to criminality.

My impression after a week

2009-04-09T23:33:00.005-04:00

After nearly a week in Sao Paulo I've noticed three different cities.

First there's the city of the future, a city of bold and new ideas and infinite confidence in progress. The architecture of this city responds to the present as if it was seen from the future.The most recent future I've seen so far in Sao Paulo is Rino Levi's FIESP-CIESP-SESI building on Paulista Avenue, a radical brutalist reinterpretation of the skyscraper. It dates from 1979.

The second city is the city of the present. This is the city of favelas and other illegal settlements. They are extremely flexible. Migration is high, investments are low. This city is in a permanent state of now. It doesn't plan a future, it doesn't look at the past. It simply responds to changing conditions in a bedazzling pace. Months, not years. As Cantinho do Ceu's lake shores get cleared from any development, business will first decrease as a response to having fewer customers. No sooner than the planned park along the shores is in place will business anticipate to the commercial opportunities linked to it.

The third is the city of the past. It's the city of paranoia, of people locking themselves up behind fences and reflecting in their architecture eras of which they believe things were better. 19th Century Parisian architecture is stretched to a hundred meter tall and Greek temples are scaled up to giant shopping boxes to forcefully fit the current context of the metropolis.

DAY 01 - 04

2009-04-09T23:09:00.005-04:00

A selection of articles related to our research can be found on the website of ARCH+:
http://www.archplus.net/flipshow190.php

DAY 01: CANTINHO DO CÉU - CIDADE JARDIM: SYMBOLISM

Besides perserving an empty stripe of about a hundred meters width the National Powerline Along the western boundary of Cantinho do Céu has landmark character. Within the masterplan of the SEHAB for the area Marcos Boldarini Architects propose a upgrade of the lakeshore for it to become a leisure area for the inhabitants. A lighthouse at the edge of the Gaivotas shore would emblematicly undermine this ambition.

While the informal city might be lacking specific identification points, most buildings in Cidade Jardim are perversly extravagant, their façades a collage of symbolic potency.

DAY 02: PARAISOPOLIS - CHE GUEVARA IN TIRADENTES: ARCHITECTURE

Informal Paraisopolis is forming a homogenious tissue of two to four story brick and concrete structures which is only disrupted at certain points by larger inserts - the formal structures of the CEU or social housing units. There exists a representational façade architecture along the main street grid which in most cases is limited to colors or tiles, but can have exeptional character like the at the Assembléia de Deus with an abstract slik metallic skin.

The social housing project Che Guevara in Tiradentes are five equal four-story housing units with four mirrored appartments à 56sqm per floor. In contrast to the flexible ad-hoc structures of Paraisópolis it's adaptability seems minor.

DAY 03: CENTRO COMERCIAL ALPHAVILLE - HÉTOR VIGLIECCA: ARCHITECTURE

The Centro Comercial Alphaville is a gated outdoor shopping center. Its architecture imitates a organicly grown building structure and projects the image of a holiday pedestrian town. Everything is decoration. Even the exterior powerlines are only a facsimile.

Hétor Vigliecca in the contrary works with real organically grown structures in an architectural way, accepting the existing patterns and transforming them by punctually inserting new architectural objects. His project for Paraisopolis - which due to politics won't be realized - proposes to increase the length of the public façades by erasing some of the urban tissue of the blocks and insert bridge-like structures to interconnect the blocks. On a larger scale Vigliecca tries to mend the urban tissues of the informal and the formal city by placing main transportation roads of the formal city inside Paraisópolis.

DAY 04: MARTINELLI BUILDING - CORTICOS: ARCHITECTURE

The Martinelly Building has widely been discussed in history books as the first highrise in São Paolo. Its historising Architecture becomes particularly peculiar when standing on its roof in todays urban setting. Surrounding highrises have surpassed it. The stone balustrade and massive cornices as well as the 'villa of the owner' have an architectural language alien to highrises. It is a peculiar moment of discomfort when acceeding the rooftop terrace. Instead of overlooking lush vegetation from a Paladian villa, a view of the urban fabric of the city opens up all around.

Cortiços are squatted building structures. We visited disused factory halls that are inhabited informally. Overlooking the enormous density and the lack of hygienic infrastructure, the long interior streets that serve as semi public spaces confined by sometimes multi-story lightweight constructions might be an intersting model for semi-formal squatter movements.

Favelism

2009-04-09T22:08:00.008-04:00

Interesting formal rhyme between an apartment tower and the nearby favela Paraisopolis. Contextuality, coincidence or a new style, favelism?

Thoughts on the first week

2009-04-09T22:05:00.001-04:00

DAY1:
Cantinho do ceu
Jardim de cidade

The first day we were presented what seemed an ambitious but rather naïve plan for improvement the neighbourhood of Cantinho do Ceu. For the benefit of a sustainable watersystem, many families were to be relocated and a parc would take their place.
Many questions raised about the good of a parc with boats and a lighthouse. Is this a realistic plan, taken into account the costs and probable use later? And will it in the end mean an increase in houseprices, thus the endangering of the position of the current habitants?
While visiting the neighbourhood it looked pretty nice and tranquil. The only deviations on this were the signs of demolitions in the 50 meter zone in favour of the parc.
I was not too much shocked about shoppingmall Jardim de Cidade. Although the lack of connection to any type of public space or pedestrian connection is alienating.

DAY2:
Paraisopolis
Ceu of Pantanal
Jardim Pantanal

In Paraisopolis we were shown many acupunctural improvements. I am starting to get a pretty positive view on favelas. But in the back there is lurking the suspicion that what we are shown is subjective.
Do they show what they want us to see, maybe the many endeavors of SEHAB? Or are these ‘the real favelas’?
Then we entered the bad side.. a large flooded area because of a construction flaw, houses no longer made of brick but scraps, and a sewege system inexistent. Now I believe the scope is more complete, shockingly so. And also this proves the work of SEHAB very valuable.

In de CEU of pantanal I again suspect being shown mainly the efforts of intervention, when being explained all about the community centre and their many courses, until we are taken through the neighbourhood and are being offered the chance on very sincere encounters with habitants.
I was much surprised about the state of the dwellings, and their efforts on their habitation and work at home. This seems to be a perfect community, very close and supportive of the neigbourhood. Plus there are many strong initiatives from the CEU and escolas. It is mpressive that they are able to build up such a vibrant and positive neighbourhood despite the threat of being evicted and relocated for the introduction of a parc.. Imagine what could be possible with a little help from the state..

DAY3:
Alphaville
Conjunto National

Another peek into the rich side. And what a boring one. The residential area of Alphaville is best described using the comparison to the set of an American filmset. And the shoppingmall was even more fake, imitating a gradually expanded old citycentre with constructions seperately designed for diversity. The most striking thing was, as was the case with the Jardim de Cidade, that there were no people to be seen at all. The only sign of life was through the blinded SUV’s and in the abundantly present staff.
At sunset we visited the Conjunto National. From this appropriate height we can not see negatives, only the wealth of the citycentre. Impressingly large spans of urban tissue larded with highrise, and helicopters zooming over as flies.

DAY4:
Lectures at SEHAB
Visit cortiços

The lectures at SEHAB were very interesting in the aspect that they again stressed the segregatedness of Sao Paulo. Strikingly enough this was accepted and reinforced by the Municipal Housing and Urban Development Department of Sao Paulo. In the lecture they pointed out in the development strategy for upgrading favelas, that the design of a city should be such, that people are no longer closed in by walls or gates. In the same lecture though, they admitted that they saw this segregated character of Sao Paulo as part of the culture and a precondition rather than a problem to be solved. I was quite dissapointed by that because it deems this ‘city without walls’ an unattainable illusion.
The cortiços were the most extreme experience so far. Visiting it and meeting these wonderfully positive and friendly people renders very humble. The injustice of the fact that they soon will be evicted despite their many investments to make a pleasant home, is too large to ignore. Hopefully in this workshop I can use the frustration to some good.

How to grow a veranda

2009-04-09T21:52:00.004-04:00

In the informally developed neighbourhoods of Sao Paulo houses don't appear. They grow. From reused building materials to brick and concrete and from one floor to two or more. Simlarly architecture isn't created but gradually growing. Particularly interesting is the way how the veranda is used as a key element towards vernacular architecture and status. The growth of the veranda seems to have stages.
Stage 1: build yourself a veranda (requires a 2nd floor) to watch over your street and to be seen while watching. Use simple hollow bricks.
Stage 2: paint or tile your facade.
Stage 3: replace your standard hollow brick balustrade by ornamented balusters. They should preferably be Greek style or Greek-ish.
Food for thought: Could growing architecture be a design tool?

Favelas, places of positivity

2009-04-09T21:05:00.002-04:00

Visiting the favelas, I get the strange impression that I was thinking in the negative.
Western concepts, such as the poverty threshold and subsistence, start from thinking that there is a limit, a line underneath which life must be really horrible. Of course the “poverty threshold” is a line governments use to indicate where priorities should be and which basic facilities a human being should have access to in order to have a decent life.
But favela dwellers think everything in a positive way. They have what they have and they will have what they will have. There is no minimum, there is just the absolute.
I was impressed today by the lady living in the house with no daylight. She is sending her three daughters to school, owns a personal computer so her daughter can study informatics at home, sings in church twice a week and smiles more than the people I saw behind the gate of Alphaville.

day 4 09-04-09 SEHAB & corticos

Toon: day by day impressions and conclusion

2009-04-09T20:48:00.001-04:00

Day 1

Cantinho de Céu, Parque Cidade Jardim

The park project could potentially be interesting. The success of these kinds of initiatives depends highly on participation by locals and maintenance. I wonder if this is thought through.

What fascinates me more is the urban agriculture, the informal market starts here. Exploiting the land at low costs for agriculture seems a win-win situation. The electricity company has a guarantee their land does not get squatted and is to a certain degree taken care of; the users of the land have a small income through farming. Anti-squatting policy, love it. I am disappointed not to see more similar initiatives.

What big a contrast did we see later at the shopping mall. It is deserted. It does not appeal to me at all. There are far more employees than costumers. Most of the shops are chains, selling large international brands.

Day 2

Paraisopolis, Jardim Pantanal

I am not surprised about the favela. If anything I expected them to be poorer and more crowded. There seem to be not too many people on the street on Tuesday morning. As we drive out of Paraisopolis the traffic and crowdiness increases. School is out. There is a very clear urban structure, a grid. I miss the narrow small streets and the economy aspect is formalized. There are shops instead of market stands, counsellors, you can pay with your credit card.

Jardim Pantanal is different. There is more space. The streets are wider, the houses are larger and all have a garden. Economic activity is not consuming, but on producing. If Paraisopolis is the city, the Jardim Pantanal is the village. I appreciate the local initiatives to educate the residents. The cultural aspect (local music and crafts) is immensely important. It helps building up a community. Am I falsely justifying informality?

Day 3

Lecture Maira Acayaba, visit Alphaville

The photography presentation is hard to see on the projector screen. It is hard to judge the images. Even though, I am very happy to see that people can access parts of the city at night.

On our way to Alphaville we pass the highway running straight through São Paulo, the snake, am I right? Maira tells me that on Sundays the road is blocked for cars and used for leisure. I feel like running. At night I see people running on Avenida Paulista. I had expected more places where you can play sports.

Now all the places where you can play sports are gated, like Alphaville. Alphaville is like a French holiday resort, but then with bigger houses. The only people I see are employees cleaning the driveways and gardeners.

Day 4

SEHAB lectures, visit to Praça José Luis de Mello Malhei

The lectures are, in my opinion, not too interesting. It seems to mee that São Paulo is too big for just one organization to build social housing. If you try to solve the problem of bad conditions in informal settlements with social housing, you will need much more. My thought is that SEHAB needs to first solve the problem of quantity by building basic housing, but housing with a high potential. Keep options open for developing quality and involve the residents. I think top down planning will be very hard. The new building designed by the architecture office provides 200 people with better housing, but you will loose the other 500 that need to move out of sight.

The visit to the neighbourhood near Estudantes is quite interesting. The city needs these kinds of spaces. It keeps local social workers in touch with the lower class of society. The garbage collection is another form of an informal economy, but opposed to the urban agriculture, this seems to have a rather negative connotation.

Conclusion

My general impression of São Paulo over the last week is rather positive. I expected the city to be much more crowded. People are quite relaxed. Culturally this is the biggest difference with European countries. The urban phenomena in the city are similar. I think culturally the difference with the United States is bigger, even though Brasil is not considered part of the western civilization. Architecturally the São Paulo tends to be more like the United States.

Economically the city does have a problem. There simply is not enough money to provide for sufficient housing and fair living conditions for everyone. So I think architects should be looking for low cost solutions, in which local participation is the most important key word.

Stair park

2009-04-09T04:26:00.001-04:00

The initial planner of the site now occupied by Paraisopolis must have been Dutch, not having thought about the hilly landscape on the site. The square kilometer, now home to approximately 100,000 people, was divided into blocks by a simple 100x200m grid of streets. Some of these grid lines however go up and down the hillside so steeply that they can never function as a street. Such was the case with one grid line that connected the area with the circumfering road network.
Recently the municipality transformed this to-steep-for-a-street space into a stair park. Parallel to a staircase there is a terraced park which enjoys great popularity amongst de Paraisopolian children.
Grid and public space are also the key elements in a proposal of the architect Hector Vigliecca for restructuring the entire favela Paraisopolis. His focus is on the inner space of the grid blocks, which is so densely built that any contact with the public domain is impossible. He proposes to open up this inner world and introduce new residential buildings that improve housing conditions and shape urban space in one. Since the buildings stretch from one block center to another they effectively open up the grid blocks towards the grid streets. The municipality first approved and then rejected the proposol. It would require too much demolishing. An understandable concern if Viglietti's plan were rigid. But it's a simple scheme that gets repeated in each block. Why not simply try it out in one block and see how the neighbourhood responds, see where it needs adaptation or leave it as one unique intervention.

One attempt to restructure Paraisopolis, seemingly simple, yet bold for the staircase ends right besides a series of luxurous residential towers. Another seemingly compex yet smart and potentially much more flexible than it appears.

Marcia vive

2009-04-08T22:27:00.006-04:00

My favorite SP picture today. This girl was killed while cycling at Avinida Paulista earlier this year. She was ran over by a bus.

Not knowing your city

2009-04-07T20:49:00.004-04:00

Paulistas don’t know their city.
Photographers collective Rolê admits this and attempts to explore the city by walking around and exploring. A more ordinary Paulista might know his or her neighbourhood, the area friends or family live in, or the areas they visit for work or leisure.
Everyone knows the central areas, such as the historic centre or Avenida Paulista. Whether they come to visit the park, work, do business or leisure, or just pass by on one of the highways or high in the sky in a helicopter, the centre still is the best known and most recognised part of Sao Paulo.
The unknown parts of Sao Paulo for its inhabitants, are the extensive peripheries that actually make up most of the urban environment. It is here that class and wealth differences that are expressed in spatial segregation lead to ignorance of the people on the other side of the road or wall.

Just like the human brain completes and fills in the lateral parts of the visual field, Paulistas know only the areas of their personal focus. The unknown habitats of the social class outside their personal focus are completed by their brains in the form of stereotypes. These stereotypes can have dramatic effects on the experience of the city.
A specific type of urban environment, for instance a favela, stereotypically is an area that is chaotic and probably dangerous for people from the well-off classes. Fear of the favela dwellers is a result and leads to even further going segregation, eventually making the living in a gated community seem a logical thing to do.
Of course there is a real basis to this fear, but the risk is actually never ruled out. Actually, you can’t live within the walls you have constructed around your house forever.
Can visibility (tearing down the walls or letting daylight enter) solve part of this problem?

Day 3 08/04/09 Alphaville

You Dirty Favela!

2009-04-06T21:25:00.001-04:00

Insult, pride, or just a word?

Formal / Informal 25 x 5 m

2009-04-06T20:50:00.008-04:00

When Adriaan Geuze (West 8, Rotterdam) was designing a high density low rise neighbourhood in Amsterdam he decided to use a 25 x 5 m lot size, with patio houses back to back.
The lot size is identical to the one we saw in Cantinho do Ceu. Coincidence? Or Logical?
Compare the two!

Amsterdam:

Grotere kaart weergeven

Sao Paulo:

Grotere kaart weergeven

Day 01: Cantino do Céu, Cidade Jardins

2009-04-06T19:40:00.003-04:00

Contrasts: A not yet reformed street of the Parque Residencial dos Lagos in Cantinho do Céu and two layers of transportation infrastructure in Parque Cidade Jardins, the new CBD of São Paolo.

New ways to deal with favelas

2009-03-30T09:49:00.001-04:00

Something to reflect upon:
http://oglobo.globo.com/rio/mat/2009/03/27/estado-levanta-muro-no-dona-marta-na-zona-sul-serao-11-mil-metros-de-concreto-755041452.asp
and for those who havent taken Portuguese lessons :D
http://orf.at/090330-36669/index.html

Harvard in São Paulo

2009-03-25T22:59:00.003-04:00

We are not alone.... Harvard GSD together with Columbia University is running a program in Paraisópolis as well as another slum called Cantinho do Ceu. Its is very much worth it to have a look at these links.
http://www.slumlab.com/
http://www.drclas.harvard.edu/brazil/gsd/studio2009

2009-03-25T22:39:00.004-04:00

Dear all, in relation to our discussion about the weekend program I suggest that you take a look at this link to the website with the winners of the IAB (Institute for Brazilian Architects) design awards for architecture and urban design in São Paulo.
It are so many projects that it looks as if they have awarded all Paulistan architects, but in any case it gives an interesting overview of fresh contemporary architecture in São Paulo.
OK, enough said, this is the link: http://www.iabsp.org.br/concurso.asp?ID=114

Interesting reading matter

2009-03-09T17:00:00.002-04:00

In the summer of 2007 the 3rd International Architecture Biennale of Rotterdam was held. This 3rd editon entitled Power - Producing the Contemporary City. They published a book about research done and viewpoints given by experts among which Kenneth Frampton, Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner, Keller Easterling, John Urry, Lieven de Cauter & Michiel Dehaene and many more.

One of the chapters is about Informal Cities with a general viewpoint by Brillembourg & Klumpner, and one of the examples being Sao Paulo researched by MMBB. I found both the exhibition and the book very interesting and i would recommend this reading matter for our workshop. The book is called Visionary Power - Producing the Contemporary City, NAi Publishers Rotterdam, ISBN 978-90-5662-579-5.

I have the book at home and if you're interested I can lend it to you. I read it when I was travelling through South-America so it's not really brandnew anymore, if you know what I mean. So if you'd like to read it, please take care of it.

Dipity TimeTube: Videos on timeline

2009-03-07T08:58:00.003-04:00

YouTube: Sao Paulo on Dipity.

During my quest looking for new ways to present our fieldwork process I stumbled upon Dipity TimeTube, a web app that quickly allows you to map your videos on a timeline. This could be an interesting way to show our process, especially when we would be making lots of videos.

I've also checked how we can add our own videos to places on a map so that would be another way to represent our data. I will put everything in a manual. For those that are curious, you can find out how in the Google Maps User Guide .

Brazilian Portuguese Online Course

2009-03-04T20:32:00.003-04:00

There is a Podcast you can find over iTunes. It is called "Brazilian Portuguese Podcast" and is published by André Barbosa and Marcos Maleval. There are some 128 Lessons by now, plenty to listen to on your iPod.

Project area

2009-03-04T18:27:00.004-04:00

View Larger Map

Street art in São Paulo

2009-02-16T06:16:00.005-04:00

This graffiti groups paints street object in São Paulo. Check out there photo's of the sewer drains they did.

Flight tickets

2009-02-11T19:09:00.004-04:00

It pays off to look around for cheap tickets. Check alternative airports for instance London or just across the German Border, like Dusseldorf. Also if you are flexible in time check different dates as it can make a huge difference.

I was looking to stay longer and figured I would fly from Dusseldorf on 01 April and back on 26 April for only 463,43 EUR (218,00 + 245,43tax)!!! This one I found on Cheaptickets.nl :

About CSI.São Paulo

2009-02-11T18:47:00.004-04:00

In April 2009 the next City Space Investigations will take place in the city of São Paulo, bringing local and Dutch students and professionals together to work on questions of sustainable urbanization. The workshop follows a 3-fold frame: preparation, 2 weeks on-site and a post-production phase.

Want to know more about the workshop? Visit urbandetectives.com