BAMBURRAL: THE FUTURE FAVELA [Engaged Design]

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL / 2010

Bamburral Housing Regeneration and Public Landscape Plan

ENGAGED DESIGN | NEIGHBORHOOD PRESERVATION | HOUSING REGENERATION | RECREATION - PEDESTRIAN INTERACTIONS | COMMUNITY - SCHOOL CONNECTIONS

An adaptive infrastructure for an evolving favela
This project translates long-term participatory research into a design proposal that preserves, supports, and amplifies a self-built community on the urban periphery of São Paulo. Based on extensive ethnographic and spatial data collected in Bamburral over several years, the design counters conventional “slum clearance” logics by treating the favela not as a problem to be solved, but as an adaptive housing landscape—one shaped by decades of resident-led building, governance, and social infrastructure.

Rather than erase or fix, the proposal works from within the favela’s existing spatial logics—its pathways, staircases, water flows, and social edges—to create a hybrid landscape of dwelling, learning, and ecological repair. Water infrastructure becomes public space. Pathways are lit, extended, and made safe. A deck bridges school and home, allowing children to traverse both physical and social terrain.