Brazil - Restructuring the Urban

Brazil is a country of city dwellers undergoing radical transformation: over 85 per cent of the country's citizens live in cities and over 40 per cent of the population live in metropolises of more than a million people. Whereas previously urban growth had been ad hoc, preparation for the FIFA World Cup in 12 cities across the country in 2014, and for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio, changed all that. Several Brazilian cities have proactively invested in infrastructure and the public realm. And a number of projects by international 'starchitects' have heightened interest in Brazil from architects and urban practitioners abroad. The failure of public authorities to meet their ambitious aspirations for the sporting mega-events sparked a series of street protests across the country under the banner of 'the right to the city', beginning in 2013. For Brazil, this was an entirely new phenomenon, one which has unveiled the potential for bottom-up influences to effect urban change. The focus of this issue, though, is on design projects that contribute a strong sense of place to their respective cities, highlighting also the integration of landscape design in urban planning and community interventions that seek to address the enormous disparity between the lives of the country's rich and poor.
 
Contributors: Ricky Burdett, Thomas Deckker, Gabriel Duarte, Sergio Ekerman, Nanda Eskes and André Vieira, Alexandre Hepner and Silvio Soares Macedo, Circe Monteiro and Luiz Carvalho, Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves, Jaime Lerner, Ana Luiza Nobre, Justin McGuirk, Francesco Perrotta-Bosch, Maria do Rocio Rosário, Fernando Serapião, Guilherme Wisnik
 
Featured architects: AECOM, Biselli Katchborian, Brasil Arquitetura, Santiago Calatrava, Studio Arthur Casas, Diller Scofdio + Renfro, Herzog & de Meuron, Vigliecca & Associados

List of contents

Editorial 5 About the Guest-Editor 6
Fore-thoughts: Learning from Lerner 8
Introduction Seeds of Change: Urban Transformation in Brazil 10
Where to for Brazil's Cities?: Citizen Empowerment or Global Marketing? 20
A City at Play: Rio de Janeiro on the Eve of the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games 28
Failing the Informal City: How Rio de Janeiro's Mega Sporting Events Derailed the Legacy of Favela-Bairro 40
Maps to Hack, Synchronise and Decipher: Unseen Cartographies of Rio 48
Rethinking Minha Casa Minha Vida: The Resurgence of Public Space 54
Dissatisfied São Paulo 60
Linking the Formal and Informal: Favela Urbanisation and Social Housing in São Paulo 70
Alternative Visions of the Brazilian City: In conversation with Herzog & de Meuron Senior Partner Ascan Mergenthaler 80
Brasília: Life Beyond Utopia 88
Recife: The Popular Struggle for a Better City 96
Salvador: The Struggle for Dialogue Within a Heritage City 106
Curitiba Revisited: Five Decades of Transformation 112
Landscaping Brazil: The Legacy of Roberto Burle Marx 118
Sustainability: A Clarion Call for a New Approach 126
Counterpoint Designing Inequality? 136
Contributors 142

About the author

Hattie Hartman is sustainability editor at The Architects' Journal in London. An American architect and urban planner, she has been based in London for more than 20 years. Hattie worked as an architect in Brasilia, Washington, D.C. and London before turning to freelance journalism in 1998 and joining The Architects' Journal in 2006. In 2008, she founded AJ Footprint, the AJ's dedicated coverage of sustainable design in the built environment, (www.ajfootprint.com). She lectures widely on mainstreaming green design and various technical aspects of sustainability. She is also the author of London 2012: Sustainable Design (John Wiley & Sons, 2012), a review of the sustainable design platform which underpinned the London Games.

Summary

Brazil is a country of city dwellers undergoing radical transformation: over 85 per cent of the country's citizens live in cities and over 40 per cent of the population live in metropolises of more than a million people. Whereas previously urban growth had been ad hoc, preparation for the FIFA World Cup in 12 cities across the country in 2014, and for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio, changed all that. Several Brazilian cities have proactively invested in infrastructure and the public realm. And a number of projects by international 'starchitects' have heightened interest in Brazil from architects and urban practitioners abroad. The failure of public authorities to meet their ambitious aspirations for the sporting mega-events sparked a series of street protests across the country under the banner of 'the right to the city', beginning in 2013. For Brazil, this was an entirely new phenomenon, one which has unveiled the potential for bottom-up influences to effect urban change. The focus of this issue, though, is on design projects that contribute a strong sense of place to their respective cities, highlighting also the integration of landscape design in urban planning and community interventions that seek to address the enormous disparity between the lives of the country's rich and poor.

Contributors: Ricky Burdett, Thomas Deckker, Gabriel Duarte, Sergio Ekerman, Nanda Eskes and André Vieira, Alexandre Hepner and Silvio Soares Macedo, Circe Monteiro and Luiz Carvalho, Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves, Jaime Lerner, Ana Luiza Nobre, Justin McGuirk, Francesco Perrotta-Bosch, Maria do Rocio Rosário, Fernando Serapião, Guilherme Wisnik

Featured architects: AECOM, Biselli Katchborian, Brasil Arquitetura, Santiago Calatrava, Studio Arthur Casas, Diller Scofdio + Renfro, Herzog & de Meuron, Vigliecca & Associados

Product details

• Authors: H Hartman, Hattie Hartman
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 22.04.2016
• EAN: 9781118972465
• ISBN: 978-1-118-97246-5
• No. of pages: 136
• Series: Architectural Design; Architectural Design
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Architecture; Architektur, Planung, Architecture, Planning, Stadtentwicklung, Bauentwurf, Urban Development, Building Design