Application of Upgrading Strategies and Urban Farming Principles to Mangueira Complex, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The project herewith described is part of research efforts aimed at identifying innovative architectural interventions in marginal urban settlements, and at formulating and experimenting strategies that would encourage the economic and cultural revitalization of degraded areas. The work is the outcome of a collaboration between scholars from the Faculty of Architecture of the University “La Sapienza” of Rome and the architect Jorge Mario Jauregui, of Rio de Janeiro. The case study represents a phase of a wider intervention plan of social-spatial restructuring of the Mangueira Favela. Promoted by the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, the intervention affects approximately 14,000 inhabitants. In accordance with the aims of the intervention, and upon request of Jauregui – in charge of the preparation of the preliminary master plan for the area – the Italian team developed the methodology for the identification of the project’s strategies and actions needed to ensure the ecological and environmental upgrading of the area. In particular, the authors elaborated – as final output of the research – various scenarios of interventions with variable levels of urban density and ecological footprint. Those scenarios were defined to provide a response to housing issues and to carve new and alternative social-productive spaces, in an environmentally and energetically efficient fashion. In this context, the article describes the methodology applied by the authors in identifying those technological and formal solutions that had better promote sustainable socio-economic models of urban coexistence, and models that ensure the greatest ecological and energetic efficiency.