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Archipélagos Urbanos: Sailing the Islands of São Paulo

Sailing the Islands of São Paulo was an enquiry into São Paulo's fragmented urban space through an on-foot exploration. The project aimed at revealing unseen lines of fracture or tension in the continuity of the urban matter. The exploration took place in the context of the 10th São Paulo Architecture Biennale in November 2013. The 10th São Paulo Architecture Biennale proposed a reflection on the making and using of the contemporary city. Arquipélagos Urbanos invited all those interested to approach the city through the practice of walking as a tool to discover and reflect on urban transformations. Experiences such as the Transurbance practised by the Stalker collective in the marginal spaces of Italian cities show that when the urban space is confronted on foot, cities reveal themselves as uncharted and unpredictable territories. Within this uncharted territory, the practice of walking functions as a twofold method of direct exploration and place-making. The project focused on this very method as a way to deal with several questions regarding São Paulo today, such as bottom-up appropriation of public space, urban mobility, and the balance between planned and unplanned development. Methodology The project was designed in order to allow for the individual contributions to nurture interaction between the participants and provide multiple research perspectives to the subject matter. We used two forms of movement in space, which we called navigation and exploration. They both relied on walking understood as a form of investigation and not merely as a goal. The navigation mode consisted in walking as a group point-to-point. It happened mostly in silence to keep concentration and pace, and to allow for the use of individual observational skills. Once an island of urban matter had been reached, on the other hand, the group entered exploration mode. Some of these island stops had been designated in advance, some were recognised as the project unfolded. During exploration mode, the participants explored the area and collected documents according to the thematic cell they had been assigned to. In both modes the group behaved as a social structure, an ephemeral, yet coherent organism. We developed the project methodology preemptively, and we could count on the collaboration of Marie-Anne Lerjen, a Swiss researcher in urban walking, who provided important feedback and advice drawn from her multi-year experience in the subject.

Report Archipélagos Urbanos: Sailing the Islands of São Paulo A project by Thais Ribeiro, Renato Hofer, and Gabriele Oropallo at the 10th São Paulo Architecture Biennial, November 2013 Summary Sailing the Islands of São Paulo was an enquiry into São Paulo's fragmented urban space through an on-foot exploration. The project aimed at revealing unseen lines of fracture or tension in the continuity of the urban matter. The exploration took place in the context of the 10th São Paulo Architecture Biennale in November 2013. The 10th São Paulo Architecture Biennale proposed a reflection on the making and using of the contemporary city. Arquipélagos Urbanos invited all those interested to approach the city through the practice of walking as a tool to discover and reflect on urban transformations. Experiences such as the Transurbance practised by the Stalker collective in the marginal spaces of Italian cities show that when the urban space is confronted on foot, cities reveal themselves as uncharted and unpredictable territories. Within this uncharted territory, the practice of walking functions as a twofold method of direct exploration and place-making. The project focused on this very method as a way to deal with several questions regarding São Paulo today, such as bottom-up appropriation of public space, urban mobility, and the balance between planned and unplanned development. Methodology The project was designed in order to allow for the individual contributions to nurture interaction between the participants and provide multiple research perspectives to the subject matter. We used two forms of movement in space, which we called navigation and exploration. They both relied on walking understood as a form of investigation and not merely as a goal. The navigation mode consisted in walking as a group point-to-point. It happened mostly in silence to keep concentration and pace, and to allow for the use of individual observational skills. Once an island of urban matter had been reached, on the other hand, the group entered exploration mode. Some of these island stops had been designated in advance, some were recognised as the project unfolded. During exploration mode, the participants explored the area and collected documents according to the thematic cell they had been assigned to. In both modes the group behaved as a social structure, an ephemeral, yet coherent organism. We developed the project methodology preemptively, and we could count on the collaboration of Marie-Anne Lerjen, a Swiss researcher in urban walking, who provided important feedback and advice drawn from her multi-year experience in the subject. 1 Pico do Jaraguá, the departure point to the urban walk Preliminary Work After the methodology was defined, the next task consisted in the selection of a group of participants. A call for participation was circulated locally and internationally about two months before the event was scheduled. The call was also published on the website of the Architectural Biennial and on social media. We received several dozen applications, from which we selected 30 profiles. They included 20 Brazil-based participants, and 10 visitors to the Biennial from abroad. We paid attention to build a diverse and balanced group to include a variety of perspective. The group was also age and gender balanced. Besides architects and architectural students, the group included geographers, historians, photographers, journalists, artists, musicians, and educators. During the first meeting prior to the actual urban walk, we introduced the group to the aims of the project in more detailed and we asked each one what angle they wanted to explore, study, and research during the project. Each participant proposed a theme, which was pitched and discussed collectively to refine it, and attract interest. During this process, the perspective of each individual question was widened and conceptualised in more inclusive terms. As a result, we were able to form six “thematic cells,” each one characterised by a key term and perspective: Thematic Cell #1 Step: rhythm, corporeality, access, appropriation; Thematic Cell #2 Place: emptiness, void, negative and positive, inclusive and exclusive; 2 Thematic Cell #3 Perspective: individual and collective, visible and invisible, familiar and unfamiliar; Thematic Cell #4 Object: culture, communication, iconography, relic, trace, function; Thematic Cell #5 Line: boundary, orbit, transition, horizon, limit; Thematic Cell #6 Flux: development, construction, nature, ephemerality, resilience. Espaço e Tempo: Sailing the islands We set out really early—at 7am on a Saturday in November […] We could see the top of the Jaraguá still covered in clouds. There was a lot of movement on the street. It was just 7:30am but a street market was already being set up. People are surprised to see our big group of blonde guys with cameras and backpacks. One of the vendors is curious about what we’re doing. We’re walking. Where to? São Paulo. But where are we from? São Paulo. Júlia Tranquesi, Logbook The exploration followed a West-East route, departing from an area near the Pico do Jaraguá, the highest part of the city accessible by means of public transport. Despite being relatively close to the city centre, the Jaraguá park in fact also represents the North-Western boundary of the city. The group walked along the park, experiencing the progressive intensification of the city as we progressed. This allowed the walkers to notice the tensions between developed and undeveloped areas, wild and built environments. During the first day of the journey, while en route toward the city centre from our Eastern departure point, we could register an extremely fragmented urban topography. We crossed very diverse and heterogeneous urban textures, rich in detail and perspectives over the city. We managed to recognise the paths we would be following and the boundaries we could be crossing already from a distance as we were approaching our final destination for the day. Some of the islands we had identified on the map, assuming their existence from some preliminary historical and topographical research in fact proved almost or entirely inaccessible. This was mostly due to the hierarchical primacy of car over pedestrian circulation, and the spontaneous zoning. We crossed the palimpsest of a railway network in several spots, and noticed the persistence of economic and industrial activities linked to the previous transport connections offered by the trains. Also the fragmentation of the territory in islands interesting persisted. Moving as a group served very well to amplify and emphasise the spatial tensions of these hinterlands. After an overnight stay squatting the Architects Association’s building, we continued our exploration on the morning of the second day proceeding Eastbound toward the hill that marks the historical foundation point of the city, and the plains between the rivers Tamanduateí e Tietê. This region bear the marks of an industrial past, and it is possible to find relics of this age in several elements of its urbanisation. These include several model villages that were built by the industrialists to house the many workers flocking to the city from the countryside and abroad. Remarkably, some of the villages survived over the decades and present themselves as islands both in time and space. We made a long stopover in Vila Maria Zélia to study its architecture, the layout of its streets, and speak to some of the inhabitants. The settlement is still walled-off and there are many relics of the time when it was self-contained and self-sufficient. The infrastructure on which it relied in its early years was purpose-built, for the neighbourhood was not part of the city proper yet. We visited the buildings formerly used as school, pharmacy, market, and the dwellings designed for the managers. The entire settlement was established through private initiative to respond to private interests. 3 This urban area is characterised by a fragile morphology and a precarious balance between radical extremes. The visit helped us to grasp a sense of similar transformations happening in other parts of the city, where the initiative is all in private hands. Seeing how the former model villages keep being inhabited by dwellers who are not connected to the now dismissed economic enterprises also provided an interesting subject of speculation. As we moved away from the river basins, proceeding toward the Western part of the city, we regained wider visual perspectives on the spatial unfolding of the urban mass. The path we followed on the second day also mirrored the first as we moved toward less intensified neighbourhoods, often inhabited by communities that are to some extent isolated from the financial and political core. The endpoint to the walk was in the Patriarca neighborhood, an area typically considered a suburb, even though the city extends itself for another several kilometres to the East. We were received and hosted by the art collective “Dolores boca aberta mecatrônica de arte” who offered us their rooms. As in the case of the other organisations that had hosted us along the trails, there were guest talks and an open conversation. In addition, with the found objects we collected along the trail, the project participants created a psychogeographic panel showing our journey, which was eventually donated to our hosts. Final meeting Three days after the end of the urban walk, we met the participants in the Biennial’s venue, where most public activities and presentations connected to the event took place. The structure of this meeting had been agreed on in advance, and it included formal presentations by each of the thematic cells. The participants of each strand collectively gave an overview on their experience and put forward proposals how to collect and present the research work done during the project. We the facilitators provided case-to-case feedback and presented our plans for an online archive that was launched at the beginning of 2014: archipelagosurbanos.org. Over the following months we worked remotely with the project participants to facilitate their addition to the web archive. Besides the website, which is open to the public, we created a participant-only archive of images and other digitalised documents that is designed to foster continued collaboration between facilitators and participants. Other resources include a detailed bibliography based on the reading list that was circulated to the selected participants previous to the project, and enhanced to respond to the theoretical questions risen during the post-production. A social media profile is also still active to help circulate additional work created by the participants over the last months, and other related information. We plan to develop on this experience with future projects and interventions. Attachments a. The urban walk as a photo essay; b. Composition of the thematic cells; c. Budget plan. 4 Arquipélagos Urbanos: Sailing the Islands of São Paulo | Photo essay Marta Juliana Abril, Linhas. Daniel Cristobal, Energia flutuante. Felt, electric wire, fluorescent thread, 210 X 70 cm. 5 Starting point on the Jaraguá hill Down the Jaraguá through uncharted green area Fragmented topography of the Bairro da Freguesia do Ó, one of São Paulo’s oldest residential neighbourhoods: accidental squares and city prospects. 6 View on the city centre from the Easternmost part of São Paulo. Photo: Silvana Maria Rosso View on Eastern São Paulo from the Tietê river. Photo: Silvana Maria Rosso 7 Drawn city report by Paula Gabbai Boundary and transition: Júlio de Mesquita bridge over Tietê river. Photo: Gabriele Oropallo Boundary and transition: passageway over railway in city centre. Photo: Gabriele Oropallo 8 Stopover on top of Esther Building, the first modernist building of the city, designed by Álvaro Vital Brasil e Adhemar Marinho in 1936. Photo: Gabriele Oropallo Overnight stay in the building of the Brazilian Architects Institute (IAB) designed by Rino Levi in 1951 9 City profiles. Central São Paulo. Photo: Florian Hauss Cityscape. Central São Paulo. Photo: Gabriele Oropallo 10 Cityscape. Central São Paulo. Photo: Florian Hauss Vila Economizadora, a model village built in the Villa Maria Zélia, the first model village of the early 20th century in the city centreo centre. city in the Belén neighbourhood. Lunch in the Photo: Manuela Lourenço old pharmacy, now the seat of the Grupo XIX theatre collective. Photo: Inês Bonduki 11 Photo: Silvana Maria Rosso Photo: Florian Hauss Eastern São Paulo, approaching final destination in the Patriarca neighbourhood 12 Participants in the headquarters of the art collective “Dolores boca aberta mecatrônica de artes,” the final destination of the walk in the Patriarca neighbourhood, in the Eastern side of São Paulo. In the background, a panel made with found objects by the participants and donated to the collective. Final meeting at the Biennial venue, the CCSP (Centro Cultural São Paulo). Photo: Gabriele Oropallo 13 Panel presenting the project at the CCSP Photos: Thais Ribeiro and Renato Hofer 14 Archipélagos Urbanos: Sailing the Islands of São Paulo | Participants THEMATIC CELL #1 STEP: RHYTHM, THEMATIC CELL #2 PLACE: EMPTINESS, CORPOREALITY, ACCESS, APPROPRIATION; VOID, NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE, INCLUSIVE Martin, Inês, Julia, Florian, Alex, Luanda AND EXCLUSIVE; Rodrigo, Ximena, Pablo, Florent, Célia THEMATIC CELL #3 PERSPECTIVE: THEMATIC CELL #4 OBJECT: CULTURE, INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE, VISIBLE AND COMMUNICATION, ICONOGRAPHY, RELIC, INVISIBLE, FAMILIAR AND UNFAMILIAR; TRACE, FUNCTION; Silvana, Fabiana, Manuela, Virginia, Dario Fernando, Lu Meili, Mariana, Peri, Fernanda THEMATIC CELL #5 LINE: BOUNDARY, ORBIT, TRANSITION, HORIZON, LIMIT; Carlos, Tiago, Marta, Merle, Paula Gabbai THEMATIC CELL #6 FLUX: DEVELOPMENT, CONSTRUCTION, NATURE, EPHEMERALITY, RESILIENCE. Daniel Cristobal, Sara, Roberto, Blanca, Paula Honda 15