On the 27th of January 2012 in the Centro Cultural of São Paulo ‘São Paulo Calling’ was inaugurated. It is an exhibition on urban informality promoted by Sehab -the Secreteria de Habitação of the Municipality of São Paulo- and curated by the architect Stefano Boeri.
The exhibition is part of a wider project, lasting six months from January to June 2012, that involves many international actors and intellectuals, to inaugurate a new season in dealing with informality. The vision of the project is to overcome the duality between indifference or eradication, towards the idea of ‘taking care’ of informal settlements as a necessary, productive, lively part of contemporary global cities.
The intention of the exhibition is to create a platform for an international overview on ‘best practices’ dealing with informal settlements, drawn from the experiences of differentiated actors -from architectural practices to NGOs, from institutions to activist groups. The first round of Jornadas de Habitação involved six cities -Rome, Mumbai, Nairobi, Medellin, Moscow and Baghdad- which were paired with six of the favelas in São Paulo –São Francisco, Paraisopolis, Heliopolis, Cantinho du Ceu, Bamburral and the city center- and aims to be extended to more cities in the future.
First Jornada de Habitação: São Francisco / Rome
On the 28th and the 29th of January the first Jornada de Habitação was set in the favela of São Francisco and was created in the previous two weeks by the collaboration between the local community and the team of Laboratorio Arti Civiche from Rome. The aim of the collaboration was to create a connection between the experience of Metropoliz, the former Fiorucci factory in Rome occupied by the political movement BPM –Blocchi Precari Metropolitani (Metropolitan Precarious Blocks)- to create an alternative to the absence of public policies on social housing, and the community of São Francisco in São Paulo, both characterized by a very strong political organization of their local residents. The work of the LAC team was organized around the idea of giving voice to the struggles of the community in spatial terms: it is through the transformation of space that the aspirations of the inhabitants of São Francisco will be articulated and publicly presented to the international audience on the day of the Jornada.
The process of the spatial articulation of struggles became quite complex as the relationship with the community leaders of São Francisco was gaining depth and intensity. The elaboration of multiple proposals reflected the complexities of the relationship between the actors and revealed the lines of tension between local representatives and the public administration. The final elaboration was opted as the maximum result possible with the greatest involvement of the community at a minimum economic cost.
An animated discussion between the LAC team and the community leaders indicated a very clear claim for public health, among other issues, as the most important matter that affected the community.
This is how the idea of a public walk for health on the day of the presentation was formulated. The spatial device to spread the message would be for all the participants to wear a shirt with a red heart symbolizing health. The LAC team therefore organized a workshop involving the community, particularly women and children, to creatively paint 250 shirts with red hearts to be distributed to the people participating to the Jornada.
For the community the device was particularly successful to publicize at a large scale their struggle for health. From an institutional point of view, the claim for a hospital structure was implicitly declaring the effectiveness of the program of urbanization and public housing implemented by the Sehab. The house is not anymore the most urgent need, the (former) favela is now ready to become an active part of the city: it is claiming urban services.
The walk crossed the different parts that compose the territory of São Francisco, from the occupations to the Promorar[1], from the Mutirao[2] to the new predios[3] and became the occasion to create attention among the population around the claim for health in a creative, ludic manner.
[1] Promorar is a type of public housing intervention implemented by Cohab (Companhia de Habitação) in São Francisco in 1978.
[2] Mutirao is a type of public intervention involving a scheme of housing units planned by professionals and self-constructed by the inhabitants. In São Francisco it was implemented in 1980.
[3] Predios are the current housing typologies that are being built since 2006 by Sehab to provide a secure shelter to the shanties built in risk area.
It ended in an area that the population had pointed out as a possible lot where to build the hospital. In that place ‘The First Cure’ a rite of traditional medicine took place, everybody stood in a circle and drank a homemade herbal remedy in coconut shells prepared by local inhabitants together with LAC. The ritual symbolized the first cure and stood as a site of hope for future transformation.
Despite its great scale and ambitiousness, one of the most important values that are being brought forward by this twenty year program of favela upgrading, is its great investment at the human scale: the key are the people. Sehab chose to invest, with success so far, on the one hand on the young generations of professionals -architects, urban planners, sociologists and so on- on the other on a very direct and transparent relationship with the population. The doors of the local centers of Sehab in the favelas are always open to people and this has started to create more cohesion among the residents and more unity in their struggles.
Most probably not everything is perfect, still many aspects can be improved, among which the quality of the spatial design. However, certainly this new approach in dealing with informality is setting a new vision and constitutes an important precedent on how to build strong and effective public policies to transform, spatially, economically and socially, favelas in an active part of contemporary global cities.
It is very likely that this new approach is just now beginning and that it will hopefully involve in the debate other cities of the world where the phenomena of informal settlements is questioning the future development of cities and the very role of urban planning and public institutions.
Azzurra.