Social Housing in Paraisopolis
This project is located close to the favelas Jardim do Colombo and Paraisopolis. It offers houses for people that have to leave the favela because they are living areas of risk regarding hygiene or geological conditions. Most social housing projects propose only modernistic apartment units that are called singapawas in Brazil. This project offers the people living in this new settlement the same life as in a favela. Each house has a direct access to the alleys and small squares. In front of each living room there is a veranda where people can dry their clothes and stay outside. On top of most houses there is a roof terrace. Five different housing units, each with a surface of 50 square meters are built ninety times. The arrangement of these vertical, standardized single family houses is totally irregular to define a labyrinthic, continuously changing space. This project acknowledges the favelas as a very specific form of architecture with totally different qualities, architectural and urbanistic, than any modernistic or contemporary western residential area.
