Risk, Resettlement, & Renewal

As the Global South continues to rapidly urbanize, finding affordable and sustainable housing solutions is paramount. The Global Housing Graduation studio provides the opportunity to design new housing typologies through environmental and social lenses. São Paulo’s challenges with rapid urbanization and social inequality has left more than a million residents vulnerable to the impacts of water scarcity, lack of public infrastructure, climate, environmental risk, and climate change. Urban expansion during São Paulo’s economic boom in the 1970s led to a considerable increase of illegal land occupations in the city’s peripheries. The development of the informal settlements formed in the peripheries thus superseded the speed at which proper public infrastructure for potable water, sanitation and electricity could be implemented.

Residents in the peripheral neighborhoods occupy open land in areas of varying environmental risk, susceptible to soil degradation, flooding, landslides, and health risks due to waste discharge. They cannot access publicly supplied water or sanitation and must rely on water cisterns, illegal connections or self-made sanitation disposal to acquire the necessary infrastructure to lead a healthy life. These risks, in addition to the future risks of climate change, disproportionally impact those living in informal settlements, due to their social vulnerability and socio-economic status.

Development-induced displacement of residents within informal settlements is enforced by the São Paulo municipal government, to permit the implementation of public infrastructure such as water lines, sanitation, drainage, street paving, and the removal of housing structures in at-risk areas. While the purpose of displacement contributes towards a positive outcome - upgrading neighborhoods with much-needed services, or rehousing residents to safer environments – the social impact of displacement is palpable. Forced displacement may move residents away from their sources of income and social networks, considerably impacting their mental well-being or exposing them to financial precarity. Readaptation to new neighborhoods or lifestyles can also be difficult for residents.

The project seeks to create a balance between social and climate resiliency to address the challenges of environmental risk and resettlement. The project proposes a new social housing system, built on the principles of clustering and the Radburn Plan, to achieve an urban design which integrates public space with rainwater flows, public infrastructure, and housing. The project location, Jardim Campinas in Grajaú, São Paulo, is used as a framework for the urban system to rehouse displaced residents from various communities onto one site. The socio-ecological design approach is implemented at each scale – urban plan, sector, cluster, and dwelling unit. The design aim is a renewal of the urban fabric, by building upon existing social and ecological networks to reinvigorate social connections and relationships between natural and built environment.