"Building for the Favelas : news from Brazil"

O site americano e-architects publicou uma matéria sobre a parceria entre Horizontes Arquitetura e o Arquiteto Fernando Lara (PhD, University of Texas, Austin). O texto de autoria de Fernando Lara, entitulado "Building for the Favelas : news from Brazil", faz uma breve apresentação do programa de reurbanização de favelas da Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte (Vila Viva) e apresenta as estratégias de projetos utilizadas pela equipe.

"(...) Horizontes, a young trio in Belo Horizonte, have already accumulated significant experience with participatory processes in their first decade in practice. Now working in partnership with Fernando Lara (a professor with large international experience) they have been able to articulate a new approach to public spaces in the reminiscent areas between the new roads and the favela remaining buildings.

In Campo do Cascalho, and Pedreira Prado Lopes the design strategy has been to locate active programs (around sports) that foster collective appropriation and discourage "privatization" by any group or individual. At the same time the spaces have to be "defensible" with as much visibility as possible to contribute to the sense of security. Another preoccupation regards soil permeability. Being extremely dense (up to 300 people/ha) the favelas are also very much impermeable and that creates enormous problems during the rainy season when 100mm of rainfall per day is a weekly occurrence.

The design solution specifies traditional materials used in new ways to increase permeability in inclined platforms that foster active uses and discourage further illegal construction (flat surfaces are much easier to be quickly taken and incorporated to existing buildings).  (...)"

Para ler o texto completo acesse o site e-architects clicando aqui.