NOTE: We are currently seeking workshop participants only. At a later date we will invite attendance at public lectures and seminars

Workshop Description and BackgroundThis 10-day Re-act Lab research workshop will introduce a group of advanced students from across the world to the realities of Brazilian cities and provide the wider public with internal and external perspectives on these. In a series of public lectures and discussions the workshop will: introduce São Paulo's metropolitan area by revealing the contrasting morphologies and urban tissues produced over time; address the critical role of everyday life in the experience of urban space; question the possibilities created for architecture and urban planning when housing basic municipal services-key structures in improving quality of urban life; and highlight the need to develop partnerships between the city planning authorities and urban pioneers, in order to build liveable cities at the beginning of the 21st century.Workshop Focus: PARAISÓPOLIS Future City 2020In parallel to the background lectures and discussions, an intensive design laboratory will explore the potentials of the relationship between existing formal and informal urban realties in cities of the southern hemisphere with Paraisópolis, in the Morumbi neighborhood of São Paulo as a test site. Structured into three modules, the design laboratory will: (1) explore alternatives to vehicle transport and develop scenarios that integrate infrastructures at both macro and micro levels to activate urban life, (2) respond to the urgent demand for new housing and quality urban space and (3) explore the capacity of micro infrastructures to remodel the existing built, real city.Workshop AimThe aim of the design laboratory is to generate visions beyond current trends in order to find long-term solutions with the potential to transform cities. It will investigate the process of moving from pilot projects for connected housing and micro-infrastructures to comprehensive design policies and strategic planning. It will consider the possibilities for designing better quality environments through the provision and retrofitting of micro-infrastructures and local-scale interventions, based on cutting-edge technologies for a range of issues including mobility (e.g. cable cars, funiculars and electrical vehicles), public lighting and illumination, public utilities (e.g. garbage collection and disposal), alternative energy production, and the management of traffic flows and parking.

A research workshop by Secretaria Municipal de Habitação de São Paulo, S.L.U.M. Lab and GSAPP Columbia University New York and Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Escola da Cidade São Paulo and Technical University Berlin with Academy of Applied Arts Munich and Faculty of Architecture of ETH Zurichwithin the framework of the Re-act Lab programme of Aedes Network Campus Berlin in cooperation with Alfred Herrhausen Society, Doppelmayr, Secretaria Municipal de Habitação de São Paulo, Columbia University, Netherlands Ministry of Spatial Planning, Technical University Vienna, Technical University Delft and ARUP.