Our own Brad White is serving on the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) Conference Committee, helping to explore the leading edge of innovation. For a brief video overview of the PDMA Global Conference October 16-20 in Orlando, FL, click here. If you are interested in attending, you can register here with the following discount code:
CM10GC
20% of Rio de Janeiro’s population lives in favelas (Brazilian Portuguese for “slums”). And all over Brazil, cities such as São Paulo, Fortaleza, Guarulhos, and Curitiba have seen the growth of large favela populations. A favela is not simply a slum, but instead is marked by:
• Illegal building on 3rd party land
• Irregular, self-constructed, unlicensed housing
• Little or no infrastructure
• Residing on the urban periphery, many times on undesirable land (such as hillsides)
This combination creates a unique living situation, in which residents need to provide their own water and navigate steep, ad hoc dirt passageways instead of sidewalks and streets in a congested environment. In these highly compact, structurally deprived societies, the rules are different and both residents and governments have had to adapt. When examined, many of these adaptations reveal innovation best practices:
1. Turn the problem on its head
2. Incentivize correctly
3. Learn from everyone
How do you bring community facilities to a place with literally no free space? Favelas are built organically without prior planning, and this creates problems when all the space is gone. Brazilian architect Jorge Mario Jáuregui has a solution. While there isn’t any free space to use for public facilities, there is space that can be used twice.
“In a project currently underway, Jorge is creating public space in the Manguinhos favela on existing train tracks that bound the community on one side. These train tracks will be elevated and the space below will become a linear park, defined by the conjugation of spaces, activities, buildings and vegetation. Facilities in the park will include sport, cultural, and income generating facilities, with a focus on providing children and teenagers with alternative attractions that will integrate them into the community. The space will also incorporate a new public transportation hub.
“This new metropolitan park will be an articulator, attracting favela residents as well as a larger public from the surrounding communities. As an integrated public space it eliminates the existing barrier and transforms the space from divider to connector. By directly intervening at the physical boundary of the favela, Jorge is directly confronting the deeper socio-economic divide that has plagued the city for decades.”
Jorge Mario Jáuregui realized that while there was no horizontal space left to plan public spaces, there was vertical space left. He turned the problem on its head and came up with a unique solution that meets all of the project’s objectives.
Local governments and institutions are also approaching these favelas in new ways. While historically ignored, city governments are realizing that these favelas are not going away and are only growing. Unless all necessary parties have incentive to change, growth will continue in the same haphazard way as before. The city of Curitiba, in Southern Brazil, is working to integrate favelas into their society through innovative measures that incent residents in favelas to work alongside the government.
“Most favelas receive transit stations shortly after being built, and the city runs a cleanup program for favelas, in which residents receive a bag of fresh produce in exchange for every bag of trash collected and turned over to the city.”
Through their trash for produce program, Curitiba is encouraging both clean living and healthy eating. The favelas get cleaner, the people get healthier. It’s a win-win for all parties.
Last, the world is starting to realize that the favelas have much to offer them. True, favelas are home to some of the poorest, most socially marginalized people in the world. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have good ideas. An Architect article titled “Cities of Tomorrow” reveals that favelas are showing many of the signs associated with sustainable development:
• Compact footprints
• High density
• Low energy use
• Little to no grading
• Reclaimed materials
• Humane scale
• Vibrant social interaction
• Self-determination
The most unique perspectives come from the most unique vantage points, whether that means talking to a child in a favela or involving all of a company’s pay grades in the innovation process.
They say that necessity is the mother of invention, so it’s no wonder that the favelas of Brazil are such fertile ground for innovation best practices. Sometimes the best ideas come from the most unlikely places, and the slums of Brazil are no exception.
Image sources: walker_dawson and Jorge Mario Jáuregui
