Rio Housing workshop

Last winter I found myself with 3 other London architects 'exporting' different aspects of UK design in the depths of the Belgrade snow.  This year I was one of six dropped by the British Embassy into a 2-day workshop in the humid warmth of Rio de Janiero. Both times I had the opportunity to discuss UK attitudes to sustainability as an essential part of good/great design.

Before he stood down, President Lula launched a programme, Minha Casa Minha Vida (My House My Life), to begin to address the massive popular housing shortage across Brazil http://www1.caixa.gov.br/gov/gov_social/municipal/programas_habitaca.  Having built 1 million homes last year and just as importantly having created 1.4m jobs, the Brazilian Ministry of Cities has much to be proud of as they move into the second wave of 1.4m homes.  But some questions were beginning to be asked about the long term impact of the programme; were the same mistakes being made in the drive for numbers as we have all made in the past. 

The workshop was a really brave initiative by Government inviting their critics from the academic world to review this programme and we were there to give some wider perspective.  We probably didn’t tell them much that they didn’t already know but by the end of the second day there was a general agreement about what might make a difference; on reflection such openness would be unthinkable in Whitehall. 

Following a meeting in November with the energetic programme leader Junia Santa Rosa at the AA, coordinated by Jorge Fiori, it seemed that we did have real expertise in areas that might be both new and helpful, especially Design Review.  So I was asked to make a presentation in the introductory session about the benefits offered by Design Council CABE Design Review, Building for Life 12 http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/Documents/Documents/OurWork/CABE/Building%20for%20Life/Building%20for%20Life%2012.pdf and the Cambridgeshire Quality Panel http://www.cambridgeshirehorizons.co.uk/qualitypanel/; I chair the latter with John Worthington and we review large housing schemes as (long-standing) critical friends under the four Cs - Community, Connectivity, Climate and Character.

Gilles Alvarenga of ZEDfactory and I spend two half-day sessions in the sustainability and technology group chaired by Junia Santa Rosa.  Our conclusions were not dissimilar from those of the other two groups in wanting better social and physical connectivity with the existing communities, proper social infrastructure, schools, health centres etc and accountable masterplanning.

But the strongest area of concern was the lack of significant regional variation in response to the varying climates and cultures; we proposed that there should be a series of smaller pilot projects to demonstrate regional needs and responses. Further we argued that all the schemes needed to be audited using a transparent tool like Building for Life to provide feedback and learning.

Overall we challenged them to think about the legacy of the programme; while recognising that 'you cannot change the tyre while riding the bicycle' as one delegate put it, there really is a need for the programme to evolve into My House My Life My City.  Discussions are now under way to see how we can develop the relationships established with the continuing support of the British Embassy.