Category Archives: Urbanism

*Multiplicities at ORDOS 100

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New York based office *Multiplicities presents its project for ORDOS 100, an experimental housing development at the fringes of the Mongolian desert with 100 houses, designed by 100 young architects.

See the earlier post about the ORDOS urban scheme.

The house on parcel number 24 features an X-shaped set of white voids captured in a black skin. The voids inhale and bounce natural light and air, while the dark skin accumulates heat from the sun. The patios on various levels of the structure relate to the surroundings. One of the patios is directly linked to a pool which at times can overflow inundating the patio on a seasonal basis.

Project team: Daniel Holguin, Issei Suma, Perla Pequeño, Joanna Park Sohn, Christopher Chan, Nicole Rodríguez, Masayuki Sono

Engineers and consultants: OVE ARUP ny, Methus Srisuchart + Tatchapon Lertwirojkul, Jee Won Kim Architect, ID engineers

Fontes do Ipiranga

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O Jardim Botânico de São Paulo, no parque estadual Fontes do Ipiranga, abriu o Córrego Pirarungaua (afluente do riacho do Ipiranga), que havia muito tempo estava tampado. Foram instalados um leito de concreto com algumas quedas, taludes verdes e um deque suspenso para pedestres. Assim a cidade recuperou um elemento natural de importância histórica e ecológica em uma das maiores áreas verdes da região metropolitana.

Projeto: Arq. Paulo Ganzeli


Exibir mapa ampliado

São Paulo 2008

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Just to remind a little how the city has grown and changed since 1943 (see previous post).

Avenida São João received a kilometers long viaduct, which in turn was liberated for pedestrians on Sundays and Holidays.
Most houses in the central area were torn down and made place for high-rise with needle-like proportions, due to modern occupation and zoning laws.
A sea of houses in the periphery now extends to the geographical limits, the Serra do Mar and Serra da Cantareira.

São Paulo 1943

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Promotional documentary of São Paulo, made in the United States in 1943.

The short film describes the ‘fastest growing city on earth’ as a booming industrial center with cultural, ethnic and historical variety. In these days, the Paulista wanted everything ‘faster, better and more’, while Brazil under Vargas was being characterized as ‘orderly and progressive’.

As matter of fact, the city that is currently serving as an example for urban inequality, segregation, informality and decadence, seems pretty tidy and fair in the nineteen forties. Or perhaps this film is, as one would say in Brazil, ‘até bom demais’ (too good to be true).

Eric and Mario, thanks for the tip.

Moving CEAGESP

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CEAGESP is the largest food market in Latin America and the third market of this kind in the world, after New York and Paris. Each month 250 thousand tons of fruits, vegetables, fish and flowers are traded here and pass through the warehouses of the complex that occupies around 700.000 m2 in the Vila Leopoldina district of São Paulo.

From 1999 to 2001 João Carlos Meirelles, then State secretary of agriculture, made plans to move the complex from this central location to the ringroad, at the junction with an important road which connects São Paulo to the hinterland. The project was supposed to improve the inner city traffic, as it would prevent 18.000 heavy trucks from crossing the city daily. The State government bought 1,5 milion m2 of land at the ringroad location, which would receive 400.000 m2 of logistic infrastructure and warehouses. Over one milion square meters would be preserved as native atlantic rainforest. The Vila Leopoldina site would become available for the implementation of a technological cience and business park, linked to the University of São Paulo, at the other side of the Pinheiros river. The project, highly dependent on the cooperation between federal and state governments, stranded in environmental processes and was filed for the time being under the first Lula administration.

In 2007 Fransisco Cajueiro, president of CEAGESP, stated that despite the need for a technological center it would be a mistake to move the complex to the outskirts of the metropolis. The necessary infrastructure is simply not there and would take much time and resources to be installed. The 3.000 enterprises and 15.000 direct jobs, currently based on the site, would leave the municipality of São Paulo. Cajueiro proposes to invest the revitalization funds on the current site, modernizing and requalifying the urbanistic context, in order to maintain the highly productive complex in the heart of the metropolis. He refers to the succes of the revitalization of the Municipal Market in the historical centre of São Paulo. This could also happen to CEAGESP.

On the one hand the plans to sell the area to real estate corporations are being criticized as segregating and undemocratic, as it will remove thousands of low income jobs to the periphery and suffocate Vila Leopoldina with luxuryous projects that would triplicate the built area of the existing neighborhood.

On the other hand the recent contruction of the ringroad, at aproximately 15 km from the city centre, will increasingly attract logistics, trade and transport functions to the periphery.

Read more (in portuguese):

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceagesp

http://onne.com.br/…

www.ceagesp.gov.br/comunicacao/eventos/

www.vitruvius.com.br/institucional/inst163/inst163_05.asp

www.horadopovo.com.br/2008/setembro/…