Regenerative Re-use of the Informal City

Abstract

The modern theme of vigorous urban transformation has been left behind by contemporary procedures linked to interstice methods and regenerative re-use. It appears appropriate to work on a hypothesis of renovation both of the favela buildings the hills are studded with and of the streets and public spaces that have no identification yet. This is the occasion to provide informal settlements with urban dignity granting them a tourist appeal, inevitably linked to the security issue, constantly threatened by unorganized crime and narco-traffic.

In Florianópolis, the capital of the state of Southern Brazil Santa Catarina, projects of social housing for an elegant urban acquisition are not necessary; what is important is to work on infrastructural equipment, on natural nets, to bring them to light and enhance them as an instrument for development perspectives in a tourist key. Informal settlements are often in the landscape, hiding it: regeneration projects must reveal it in order to cure it, making of it the treasure of the city. The suggested tourism will never become voyeurism or safari of misery if a constant checking of community participation is the test paper for the success of the project.

The project which starts in Italian and Brazilian projects, will be introduced to the involved community by means of artistic and handcraft installations, capable of making it easy to share, simulations with prototypes that can become a system: a canvas covering a public space, the bright color of a façade with the notes of a samba school imprinted, a self propelled urban garden made with wooden boxes.

The perspective for the research is very interesting, providing for the enlargement of the graduate school Habitaçao e Cidade to the “Florianópolis case”. This school has developed in São Paulo by the Escola da Cidade, with the involvement of the technicians of the municipality. So it would become in a real international master, with a request for funding of European funds Erasmus Plus, that would allow the movement of Italian graduates ready to make an experience on the topic of “informal city” in Brazil.