CIDADE PARA TODOS CITY FOR ALL



	DESIGN WORKSHOP FROM 2 TO 13 November 2009 At the beginning of November, German and Brazilian experts and students will be working on-site in an inter-disciplinary design workshop on a specific urban planning assignment. The subject of the two-week workshop – part of the German contribution – is the city of Diadema and both the typical characteristics and problems of areas on the outskirts of metropolitan São Paulo and specific aspects relating to Diadema and its current situation. Thirty participants from Brazilian and German universities are meeting the joint challenge. From Germany the Department of Urban Development and District Planning of Hamburg Hafencity University’s Faculty of Urban Planning and the Department of Open Space Development of Leibniz Universität Hannover’s Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences were invited to take part. Brazilian participants are from the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo, the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the USP São Carlos, the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie São Paulo and the Escola da Cidade São Paulo. The municipal administration of Diadema is playing an active part. In Diadema a number of urban areas are to be developed by the municipal administration in the years ahead, but specific plans have yet to be drawn up. The aim of the design workshop is to jointly develop new ideas based on the respective specific background knowledge and approaches and to draw up planning proposals accordingly. The results will be presented on the spot as part of the CIDADE PARA TODOS exhibition. In 2010 the Brazilian participants will be visiting Hamburg to tackle jointly with German participants an analogous assignment in the presentation area of the IBA (Hamburg). The German contribution will then also be on display in Hamburg. The city of Diadema Diadema is a relatively “new” city in the metropolitan region of São Paulo that became a separate entity in the late 1950s and for a long time developed into a typical dormitory suburb alongside the neighbouring industrial cities of Santo André, São Bernardo and São Caetano. Rapid and uncontrolled urban development led to the emergence of an unsystematic urban structure in which legal and illegal residential, commercial, industrial and other buildings of different shapes and sizes exist side-by-side and chock-a-block. River valleys and slopes were developed regardless of the landscape and the inadequate urban infrastructure can cater for only a part of the population. Diadema today is Brazil’s second most densely populated city with very few open spaces offering urban recreational opportunities for about 400,000 people. The Rodovia dos Imigrantes highway, built in the 1970s as a major transport link between the port city of Santos and the São Paulo metropolitan region, cut Diadema’s already fragile urban structure into two, dividing districts, roads and paths. The few remaining green spaces were lost and some of the population was evicted. Informal settlements and favelas (shanty towns) took shape on either side of the highway and its two grass verges. Since the late 1990s strenuous efforts have been made to take “urban acupuncture” forward, including the urbanisation of favelas, construction of social housing and upgrading of public spaces, squares and neglected plots of land. Since the highway was privatised in the 1990s joint attempts have been made with the highway operator to improve the situation that had arisen, but success has so far been limited. The city’s own financial resources and occasional grants from São Paulo state and Brasilia are used to implement individual projects, but the funding available is nowhere near enough to cope with the problems that Diadema faces.

DESIGN WORKSHOP FROM 2 TO 13 November 2009

At the beginning of November, German and Brazilian experts and students will be working on-site in an inter-disciplinary design workshop on a specific urban planning assignment. The subject of the two-week workshop – part of the German contribution – is the city of Diadema and both the typical characteristics and problems of areas on the outskirts of metropolitan São Paulo and specific aspects relating to Diadema and its current situation.

Thirty participants from Brazilian and German universities are meeting the joint challenge. From Germany the Department of Urban Development and District Planning of Hamburg Hafencity University’s Faculty of Urban Planning and the Department of Open Space Development of Leibniz Universität Hannover’s Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences were invited to take part. Brazilian participants are from the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo, the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the USP São Carlos, the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie São Paulo and the Escola da Cidade São Paulo. The municipal administration of Diadema is playing an active part.

In Diadema a number of urban areas are to be developed by the municipal administration in the years ahead, but specific plans have yet to be drawn up. The aim of the design workshop is to jointly develop new ideas based on the respective specific background knowledge and approaches and to draw up planning proposals accordingly. The results will be presented on the spot as part of the CIDADE PARA TODOS exhibition. In 2010 the Brazilian participants will be visiting Hamburg to tackle jointly with German participants an analogous assignment in the presentation area of the IBA (Hamburg). The German contribution will then also be on display in Hamburg.

The city of Diadema

Diadema is a relatively “new” city in the metropolitan region of São Paulo that became a separate entity in the late 1950s and for a long time developed into a typical dormitory suburb alongside the neighbouring industrial cities of Santo André, São Bernardo and São Caetano. Rapid and uncontrolled urban development led to the emergence of an unsystematic urban structure in which legal and illegal residential, commercial, industrial and other buildings of different shapes and sizes exist side-by-side and chock-a-block. River valleys and slopes were developed regardless of the landscape and the inadequate urban infrastructure can cater for only a part of the population. Diadema today is Brazil’s second most densely populated city with very few open spaces offering urban recreational opportunities for about 400,000 people.

The Rodovia dos Imigrantes highway, built in the 1970s as a major transport link between the port city of Santos and the São Paulo metropolitan region, cut Diadema’s already fragile urban structure into two, dividing districts, roads and paths. The few remaining green spaces were lost and some of the population was evicted. Informal settlements and favelas (shanty towns) took shape on either side of the highway and its two grass verges.
Since the late 1990s strenuous efforts have been made to take “urban acupuncture” forward, including the urbanisation of favelas, construction of social housing and upgrading of public spaces, squares and neglected plots of land. Since the highway was privatised in the 1990s joint attempts have been made with the highway operator to improve the situation that had arisen, but success has so far been limited.

The city’s own financial resources and occasional grants from São Paulo state and Brasilia are used to implement individual projects, but the funding available is nowhere near enough to cope with the problems that Diadema faces.