Passinho and Pacification

As I listened to a Youtube video of a Passinho battle, with it’s rough and heavy funke soundtrack, something perfectly appropriate happened. A middle-aged acquaintance remarked sarcastically from the other Continue reading →

Knowing the Favela

The current paradigm of ‘favela integration’ in Rio de Janeiro requires that the favelas themselves become an object of knowledge. That is, favelas cariocas must be constructed as knowable before Continue reading →

The First 3 Things I Learned: What Were Yours?

Last week I was involved in the penultimate critique for a 4th year design studio. I love participating in critiques for the shear volume of creative outcomes I get exposed Continue reading →

Pacification and 24 Hour Surveillance in Rocinha

The favela pacification process is well under way in Rio’s favelas–the process of reclaiming territory once run by drug gangs such as The Comando Vermelho, Terceiro Comando, and Amigos dos Continue reading →

Happy New Year from the Morro

Just about every American I know who’s been just about anywhere in Latin America baffles about how all the good real estate is the bad real estate. In the US, Continue reading →

“Underground Sociabilities”: new trends in urban social research?

Social psychologists at the London School of Economics partner with Brazilian researchers and challenge us to consider grassroots struggles for social inclusion rather than focus solely on marginality and exclusion. Researchers Continue reading →

New Ecological Park for Rocinha: Public Intervention Worth Bragging About

When I first visited the construction site of the Parque Ecológico da Rocinha I was asked to not share photos since the government entities involved in its planning and construction Continue reading →

Another Periphery II

In my last entry Another Periphery I introduced Igaraí, a rural farming town in the state of São Paulo and the Guilherme Zaneti public housing complex located just outside the Continue reading →

Limpa Brasil: Municipal Waste Management Under the Sambinha Influence

Last month I posted on how catadores–people who earn their living by picking through solid waste to glean and resell recyclables–in Brazil set a positive example of how personal thrift Continue reading →

Questions of perspective

Lines are being drawn over Rio de Janeiro’s controversial Pacifying Police Units; but are opinions more ideologically informed than they are based on empirical evidence?  Last week I attended a conference about Continue reading →

Sambinha Architecture, Biophysics, and Cheap Energy

To my friends and family who are unfamiliar with my town, I’ve often described it by asking them to picture the US in the pre-interstate highway era. It’d take about Continue reading →

More Definitions :: Informality vs. Informalities

While reading some of the posts from last week, I couldn’t help but ask myself again ‘What is informality?’ The more I learn about the subject, the more difficult it Continue reading →

Favelas, Foreigners and Due Diligence

If you haven’t seen some iteration or other of the “KONY 2012″ campaign yet, you have lived a dearly rare life in America over the last few months. Likely as Continue reading →

Skins+Signs :: PART 2

AESTHETIZATIONS+GENTRIFICATION “Observers of the contemporary city have described the late capitalist urban condition as characterized by a trend toward the aesthetization, where the primacy of the visual and the centrality Continue reading →

“Informal” Designers, Part 2

My last post looked at stair design in favelas in São Paulo, Brazil, and how spatial constraint, material availability, and communal negotiation impact design. This post will look at another Continue reading →

Skins+Signs :: PART 1

[Skin+Signs]: Upgrading tool driven by aesthetics and imagery. Skins+Signs focuses on minimal interventions, such as the application of paint, ornament, and marketing to the exterior of buildings and structures, attempting Continue reading →

“Informal” Designers

As I noted in my last post, professional architectural design has recently come to be seen as a valid and potentially effective approach to improving informal settlements. I have long Continue reading →

Favela and Futebol III: 1950′s maracanazo

For the first time since the advent of World War II the soccer world reconvened in Brazil in June, July 1950. With the Maracanã as the larger stadium in the Continue reading →

The Perfect House

I have been teaching art classes to kids in a favela in the north zone of São Paulo for two years now. One of our staple activities is free drawing Continue reading →

Why Design?

I’d like to take as my starting point the blog entries posted here by Proyectos Arqui5 about their experiences designing upgrading projects in barrios in Caracas, Venezuela. I’m struck by Continue reading →