Sao Paulo knows many parallel worlds. Some overlapping, some at great distance. Sometimes with great contrast, sometimes fading. It's a heterogenous monster.
There are some patterns in this heterotopia and one of them is the tendency of informal activities to cluster. On a first visit it is hardly understandable why things cluster and how and over how much time. It's obvious what the sowing machine stores and mannequin stores are doing in the same street as where the wedding dress stores have gathered, but why there near Luz station, a place which dirty and deterioriated buildings are such a contrast with the delicate white dresses.
I visited another world today, Villa Madalena. A happy place with some traces of a deterioriated past, street art, a transition into a professional art scene and then being followed up by food and now also architecture! In the case of Villa Madalena I stop wondering why it has clustered and just admire the great flexibility of the traditional houses there, with 3 to 5 meter space in front which can be transformed in endless ways.
Understanding how informality clusters might hold the key to using it as a city planning tool, which in the case of Sao Paulo isn't given to the municipality. It might be a developer's or a local community's interest to do city planning, to launch small projects that initiate larger changes. Architects can be great intermediates in these processes. The municipality might not be interested but hey.. that doesn't seem to bother 70% of the city.
That's the theory. Now finding a way to reflect this, to visualize in some collage-like way an infected Sao Paulo, where small interventions cause great changes.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Mapping informal clusters
Sao Paulo has many examples of informal clustering. Here are some that I saw today:
A street with 30 or more stores that sell wedding dresses.
Further along the same street, a cluster of mannequin stores.
The top 5 floors of this building have been cleared to facilitate an ever growing cluster of telecommunication devices.
Still my favorite, a cluster of interior light stores that double as parking garages.
A street with 30 or more stores that sell wedding dresses.
Further along the same street, a cluster of mannequin stores.
The top 5 floors of this building have been cleared to facilitate an ever growing cluster of telecommunication devices.
Still my favorite, a cluster of interior light stores that double as parking garages.
Informal clustering and strategic design
If city planning exists in Sao Paulo, of which I'm sure it does, it is as much a parallel world to the real urban development as are the spatially segregated worlds like Alphaville and Paraisopolis to each other. And similarly it would be difficult to see these forces operate simultaneously.
After a week in Sao Paulo, I noticed three parallel worlds, one of the future, one of the past and one of the present. Unfortunately Joao Tonucci commented, "..the city of the future (modern and bold architecture, the faith in social transformation) is now buried in the past, and the city of the past (post-modern language and visceral individualism) is our future. And the informal city keeps struggling day by day.".
On a very small scale I've noticed examples in Sao Paulo of clustered informal development. Where one takes an initiative, others soon follow. This happened particularly in the favelas. Where the municipality took the initiative to paint one house, the neighbours followed. Another interesting clustering of informality can be found in the retail. Most unique is the cluster of interior light shops that double as parking garages.
The clustered informality might be a key to the use of strategic design as a city planning tool. By making specific and relatively small interventions you can steer the way in which the city then evolves informally.
As an approach to this topic I would like to map the process of informal clustering in the strip to get a better understanding of the mechanism of this clustering. There seems to be a swimming pool stores cluster in Sao Paulo which I have yet to visit. There might be other remarkable clusters, together forming a network on the scale of the entire city. Parallel to this network I would like to get an understanding on the new network in the sky and see if and how it relates to the city development and the process of informal clustering.
After a week in Sao Paulo, I noticed three parallel worlds, one of the future, one of the past and one of the present. Unfortunately Joao Tonucci commented, "..the city of the future (modern and bold architecture, the faith in social transformation) is now buried in the past, and the city of the past (post-modern language and visceral individualism) is our future. And the informal city keeps struggling day by day.".
On a very small scale I've noticed examples in Sao Paulo of clustered informal development. Where one takes an initiative, others soon follow. This happened particularly in the favelas. Where the municipality took the initiative to paint one house, the neighbours followed. Another interesting clustering of informality can be found in the retail. Most unique is the cluster of interior light shops that double as parking garages.
The clustered informality might be a key to the use of strategic design as a city planning tool. By making specific and relatively small interventions you can steer the way in which the city then evolves informally.
As an approach to this topic I would like to map the process of informal clustering in the strip to get a better understanding of the mechanism of this clustering. There seems to be a swimming pool stores cluster in Sao Paulo which I have yet to visit. There might be other remarkable clusters, together forming a network on the scale of the entire city. Parallel to this network I would like to get an understanding on the new network in the sky and see if and how it relates to the city development and the process of informal clustering.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Project PARALLEL WORLDS
Paulistas don’t know their city very well.
The causes of this are:
Social and economic segregation
Spatial segregation (favela, gated community, walls, fragmentary urban structures, etc)
Enormity of the urban environment
In Sao Paulo we also find many empty billboards because of the Municipal ban
on advertisements. Simultaneously there are many blind façades, because of highrise buildings being an extrusion of their lot.
Decorating of walls is a typical feature of São Paulo that is becoming ever stronger because of the ban on advertisements and signs.
Project / Idea:
Walk the WHOLE strip
Explore the parallel worlds within the strip
Make them visible as an act of forcing awareness, and giving back Sao Paulo's decorated façades.
The final product will be a series of collages that show the contradictions and also similarities between Sao Paulo's Parallel Worlds.
The causes of this are:
Social and economic segregation
Spatial segregation (favela, gated community, walls, fragmentary urban structures, etc)
Enormity of the urban environment
In Sao Paulo we also find many empty billboards because of the Municipal ban
on advertisements. Simultaneously there are many blind façades, because of highrise buildings being an extrusion of their lot.
Decorating of walls is a typical feature of São Paulo that is becoming ever stronger because of the ban on advertisements and signs.
Project / Idea:
Walk the WHOLE strip
Explore the parallel worlds within the strip
Make them visible as an act of forcing awareness, and giving back Sao Paulo's decorated façades.
The final product will be a series of collages that show the contradictions and also similarities between Sao Paulo's Parallel Worlds.
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