Population: 80,000 Site Condition: Steep gradients due to presence of hills Existing uses of site and surrounding context: major road and rail structures, popular neighborhoods and favelas. There exists today a demand from various sectors of society for a re-evaluation of the concept of "development", including sustainable proposals, projects and interventions designed to promote an associational life based on the democratic participation in decision making. A careful analysis of the existing context and the subsequent insertions is needed to achieve responsible action and social urbanism. Along with the quality of the design, there also exists the fundamental issue of the environmental impact and the reconsideration of densities. These issues are directly related to vibrant public spaces and the conversion of places, and therefore have the ability to promote coexistence whilst also attending to other major issues. The large city's urban entropy characterizes the transition from a state of order to that of disorder, and unstable states to others with a higher static probability. This concept of entropy allows us to imagine project devices designed as mechanisms for the interchange of scale between the local system and the greater meta-system; the city is constructed from structured order (having read the structure of a place and "listening" to its demands) and conceptual flexibility, rather than compositional decisions directed to compulsively reconfigure reality. The production of these "schemes from reading" acts as a somewhat diagnosis and interpretation of the relationship between the place and its surroundings . From which comes the identification of its limitations and potential, connecting the open logic of contemporary design with the diffused structure of the unfinished city and allowing for the synthesis of information and the capacity for projects to reactivate the place. The actions defined by the Urban Project aim to radically transform the context of each complex (Manguinhos and Alemão) both in the physical structure and in the conception of the city, causing reconfigurations, building relations through a project thought of as a mechanism of determination, using unrestricted standards. The Civic Centre and the cable cars designed for the Complexo do Alemão, along with the elevation of the railroad which is now the middle part of the Complexo do Manguinhos, and the creation of a public promenade (Rambla) connecting the train station to the Civic Centre, a large scale urban intervention which impacts on the whole city, and represents a new approach to the metropolitan scale and local conditions. The combination of the physical, social and ecological together with public security and other contemporary issues, becomes the project´s nucleus realized through its process. It must be considered that the economic investment and design, the engineering and architecture, and the social and political, can only be articulated through a new territorial pact that assumes the mobilization of people, knowledge, social and technical networks and a new productive political agency of the territories crossed by new flows of mobility and access. Complexo do Alemão The principle objectives of the project are: - to clear of the Complexo do Alemão site in its entirety, symbolically one of the most problematic in both Rio and Brazil. - Promote and facilitate a new region of complex connectivity with both the surrounding neighborhoods and the wider city. - to restore the existing centralities and introducing new ones, together with high quality equipment and services to create new accessibility. - to incorporate buildings of architectural value into the urban landscape of the favela, to act as social and spatial reconfigurations. - to establish the site as a symbol for the new public power by creating strong, visible brands in the cable car stations, buildings and services and the public spaces associated with them. - to introduce the architectural and environmental context of the favela into the project in addition to high quality public equipment, triggering a process of transformation and reframing of the complex as a whole. - to perform a type of structural intervention, activating hotspots in the fabric of the slum. - to reduce the movement of vehicles within the complex, subsequently facilitating the increased movement of people. Main aspects of the Complexo do Alemão project: 1. System of Cable Cars The system of cable cars designed for the Complexo do Alemão favela is based on a concept of linking the community to the transit system, at the scale of a complex urban transport system. 2. Civic Centre The Civic Centre, designed on the site of the former "fábrica da Poesie" long since abandoned, is another key point of the intervention to form a powerful new centrality. It includes a vocational school, hospital, a centre for employment and income generation, youth centre and a high quality, communal residential condominium. 3. Park of Serra da Misericordia The proposed park is to be implemented at an urban scale with a surface area of 307ha, and harnesses the high-potential for the landscaped environment of the site, which occupies the area of three quarries. 4. Housing for the Relocation of Residents The housing units for the relocation of residents as specified in the urban plan were designed according to the density and topographic characteristics of the site and have a dual purpose: offer several options for the internal environments including the possibility of use for both residence and work, whilst also ensuring a public domain; the Urban Facade. 5. Internal Roads The whole system of internal circulation including pedestrian paths, roads, alleys and stairways was restructured, incorporating infrastructure, urban furniture, public lighting, vegetation and signage. A component of this urbanization plan is the projected improvement of existing residential units, including the renovation of roofs, facades and completion of household sewer connections. Complexo de Manguinhos Population: 50,000 Existing uses of the site and surrounding environment: major road and rail structures, petroleum refinery, centre for health research (Fiocruz), large deposits of support in the port structures of the city. The project proposes the socio-spatial integration of a part of the favela complex which is divided in half by the walls of the train line. The creation of the Civic Centre in gathering services, equipment and public space together with the new housing sector, implies a reconfiguration of centrality whilst introducing a new and powerful attraction of conviviality in the North Zone of the city. The configuration of a new image for the Complexo de Manguihos, incorporating a Library/Park, a large vocational school, the Centre for Work and Income Generation, Judiciary Support Centre, A Reference Centre for Youth, squares and spaces of coexistance at the scale of the entire complex, shows the irreplaceable role of public power in the social-spatial restructuring of the city. The Rambla is designed to unite the Civic Centre with a new train station, incorporating it into the project and creating a new and strong image for the place in the scale of the city whilst also representing the materialization of a new type of public space, connectivity, multi functionality and aesthetic quality able to configure the social legacy of President Lulu's government into the urban plan. Jorge Mario Jáuregui |
