Learning from favelas: the poetics of users' autonomous production of space and the non-ethics of architectural interventions

Ana Paula Baltazar and Silke Kapp of MOM (Morar de Outras Maneiras)

 

This paper by Ana Paula Baltazar and Silke Kapp of MOM (Morar de Outras Maneiras) considers the role of architects and how they might intervene in informal settlements, where a high degree of autonomous and self-organised construction takes place.

I would like to use this paper as the starting point for a Forum discussion on a couple of related issues, which will be expanded upon in the Forum:

- how can architects and urban planners learn from different spatial and socio-political  conditions?  What kinds of translations need to take place when doing so? 

- what are the different starting points (or 'points of contact' after Richard Sennett) for architects to intervene in existing situations, and how might they be identified?

 

The forum discussion is here:

http://emergingsustainability.org/built-environment-cluster/forum/how-intervene-self-organised-conditions-architect-what-are-issues

 

Paper accessed from the McGill University Reconciling Poetics and Ethics in Architecture conference website at http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/theory/conference/papers.htm