Convection Slum, Brazil

The Rocinha community originated in the 1930’s from the division of bigger farms in smaller lots for food production. The pressure came specially from people seeking for jobs in infrastructure construction taking place in other parts of developing Rio de Janeiro. The proposal located in this settlement is directly related to local space needs and the lack of inhabitable land.

Concept: Poverty, hunger, discrimination, reality. Life experience. In what way could we relate the lack of inhabitable space  to the huge amount of  underprivileged people in one of the largest Brazilian cities? Differences between living space and designed space. The organization in a slum is similar to a competition for survival, where the strength, be it political or physical, coupled with low budget creates huge spaces of both innocence and turbulence, human and inhuman spaces to the extreme, an example of vivid architecture, not about mistakes or successes, about the huge range of differences. Plurality. Experiences. Culture.

Interstitial spaces are the living spaces of slums, this spaces are the consequence of the lack of private space and the high density, forcing the street meetings, so the boundary between public and private becomes invisible, almost non-existent, but it does not become a problem for the culture of miscegenation. The multi-space (the transition area) becomes the meeting place of the local community. The building design aims to maintain the diversity of events generated by the “favela” in its interstitial spaces. Resulting from this, the skyscraper is shaped spontaneously in a rich mixture of sustainable spaces. Program:   The building, more than 500 m (1640 ft) tall, will provide housing for thousands of people and also access to educational, cultural and leisure infrastructure to inhabitants and nearby communities. The plurality and mix found in the “favela” is applied to the programmatic needs of the skyscraper:

Culture – theaters, cinemas, music halls, auditoriums, museums, places for samba rehearsals, libraries, places for expositions; Sports – gyms, pool, sport rooms, lockers, services; Green roofs; Health Unities; Schools, elementary schools and nursing houses; Small offices areas; Service and Commerce areas; and, most significantly, habitations of various sizes. The vertical circulation always starts and stops in an interaction space, a gathering and cultural place with enormous encountering and exchange possibilities. The building is provided with a major vertical circulation and various secondary circulations.  Hierarchy is established by the vertical movement, the principal one, the generator of multiple possibilities. The secondary vertical circulations act as local transitive elements, mixing uses and promoting contact.

Photo Gallery of Convection Slum, Brazil