Under the title \u00abMinha Casa, Nossa Cidade\u00bb (My House\u2014Our City), the 2012\/13 MAS Urban Design (MAS UD) program focused on developing a new perspective on the ambitious Brazilian Federal Housing Program \u00abMinha Casa, Minha Vida\u00bb (My House\u2014My Life) MCMV, that has been launched in 2009 with the mission to provide 3,4 million housing units by 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The standardized solutions of the existing government\u2019s housing schemes are rather conceived as economic models than designs for neighborhoods. By replacing the second part of the name, \u00abMinha Vida\u00bb, with \u00abNossa Cidade\u00bb, the MAS moves the emphasis on the production of the city as a collective project and an inclusive livelihood rather than on the privatization of the city in individual units.<\/p>\n
How can we envision and plan the city starting from economic and cost-efficient models? How can we innovate low-cost building practice in a more sustainable way, socially and economically? What do we have to consider in order to provide high quality habitats for future generations?<\/p>\n
With the selection of four exemplary sites in different urban or rural contexts (Rio de Janeiro, S\u00e3o Paulo, Bras\u00edlia, Parauapebas) a range of conditions have been investigated: While some of the resulting schemes reflect the situation in the periphery of the city or within an urban edge condition, others develop strategies how to conceive these settlements as \u201cnew centralities\u201d as satellite towns or in close relationship to existing urban centers. By combining research on popular Brazilian architecture with ideas of how to improve the Federal housing program, \u00abMinha Casa, Nossa Cidade\u00bb aimed not only towards turning the highly monotonous MCMV settlements into a city but also to stimulate a broad, productive discussion on the future of popular housing in Brazil.<\/p>\n
The program outcome was presented in an exhibition on the occasion of the S\u00e3o Paulo Biennale, and published in the book \u00abMinha Casa, Nossa Cidade\u2014Innovating Mass Housing for Social Change in Brazil.\u00bb (Ruby Press 2014)<\/i>
\nThe guidelines for mass housing in Brazil that have been developed as a result of the MAS research will be presented on the opening of the swissnex office in Rio and on the World Urban Forum 2014 that will be held from April 6th<\/sup> \u2013 11th<\/sup> 2014 in Medellin.<\/i><\/p>\n