Micro interventions designed for the dilapidated neighbourhood of São Cristóvão in Rio de Janeiro are to get its development under way from the inside outwards through resident self-organization.

Rio de Janeiro is dominated by megaprojects. With urbanization ever on the increase, the need to provide facilities for dwelling, recreation and mobility is often sought at a metropolitan scale. This puts the received urban fabric in second place and has a negative effect on social and residential conditions. Some places in the city slip from view as sites lacking potential. And yet these places buzz with local activity and ventures. Here, a self-organized urban culture is emerging. This final-year project seeks to fuel discussion of this phenomenon and determine how design tools can facilitate this self-organization.
Lying outside the old town centre, São Cristóvão has since 1990 been sliced through by the Linha Vermelha, a gigantic two-level motorway on stilts. With its fine particle pollution, limited daylight and noise, the area in the vicinity of the motorway has little to recommend it. All the same, residents and small businesses have developed tactics to live or at least survive in this 'invisible' zone. In metropolitan terms, the Linha Vermelha is a crucial project and is not likely to be wiped from the map. The sheer scale of its planning, draped as a new layer over the existing city, is well served by area development from the inside outwards.
The structure of 'pockets', open places in the fabric, is stitched to the covered street below the Linha Vermelha. This gives a secondary urban structure and new spatial continuity. The proposed micro interventions stimulate the process of self-organized urban culture. As the urban culture unfolds, daily life in and along the covered street will improve.
The transition between the covered street and the pockets in the urban fabric provide the groundwork for the secondary structure. To achieve this, the project deploys an open design vocabulary that besides spatial and supportive elements gives a perspective on local collaborative ventures. At all levels, the design steps off from the construction of the motorway. Its basic unit is a plane with a facility such as water, electricity or storage space worked into it. The plane can be mounted into the pocket as a floor, a wall or a roof, depending on the potentials on site. Three best-case scenarios kickstart the process of self-organization and the arrival on site of the new structure. A strip emerges containing an array of types of public or semi-public spaces and a strong local economy. In this way, the invisible places and the activities attendant on them gradually establish their validity beside, along, above, on or below the received megastructures. This response enriches the 'invisible city' in a physical sense without sweeping away the received social structures.

Place of education: TU Eindhoven | Specialization: stedenbouw/urban design | Tutors: Bruno De Meulder, Sophie Rousseau, Irene Curulli