Brazil Studio, Sao Paulo
Instructors: Jeanne Gang / Martin Klaeschen
Collaboration: Escola da Cidade in Sao Paulo
Focus: Globalization / Population Growth / Modernization / Urbanization in Brazil
The Project
The studio project was two-fold: to prepare an urban analysis and design proposal followed on a micro scale by a building project as a piece of the earlier urban proposal. The building's program, material and structure were informed by the initial analysis. The studio traveled to Sao Paulo and worked in parallel coordination with the students and faculty at the Escola da Cidade in Sao Paulo.
The studio explored how globalization as an important international phenomenon, combined with rapid population growth, occurs in this particular Latin American city. During the mid-point of the semester, the studio visited and explored Sao Paulo as an exciting real-city laboratory. The studio discovered regional, architectural and urban subjects such as history, density, patterns of growth, dwellings, popular culture, craft, materials and construction technology and investigated their potential impact on the planning and building culture by considering Brazil's economical, social, environmental and technical problems as a breeding ground for a project: The challenge was to think about Sao Paulo as an informal city without physical and conceptual preoccupations of (European) our own urban traditions.
This Brazil Studio, Sao Paulo, is generously supported by the Jocarno Fund, Chicago.