INFORMAL BUILDING CULTURES [Fulbright Research]

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL / 2008 - 2009

INFORMAL BUILDING CULTURES

Sponsor William J Fulbright Foundation

Institutional Sponsor The University of São Paulo / Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism

Mentor Maria Ruth Amaral de Sampaio

FULBRIGHT | AUTOCONSTRUCTION | BUILDING MATERIALS | PRESERVATION

Informal settlements both drive and are vulnerable to redevelopment or ‘upgrading.’ In São Paulo, many upgrading projects remove more housing than is constructed. Housing loss from redevelopment and a general affordable housing supply deficits create new informal building cultures – a topic that I examined in a small favela called Bamburral.

Although small, Bamburral is an important favela for the Perus district because its location next to a landfill drew public finance for redevelopment via carbon offset trading. Through situated studies of how housing informality is shaped by everyday material flows, my work offers an alternative for integrating Bamburral’s existing building cultures into future redevelopment processes and outcomes.

This study shaped the Bamburral Housing Regeneration and Public Landscape Plan; its emphasis on local data also became a focus of my postdoctoral work.