Dínamo

Zurich, Switzerland

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Dínamo
Commerce as an engine for redevelopment of favela Rio das Pedras
Project team: Marija Blagojevic and Keyvan Gharaee Nezhad
Co-workers: Lindsay Bush and Catherine Blum

Mentors: Marc Angelil,
Reiner Hehl, Rafael Smidt and Julia Sulzer

Location: Favela Rio das Pedras, Rio de Janiero, Brasil
Autumn semester 2010/2011
Master of Advanced Studies in Urban Design
ETH Zurich
THESIS

Learning from Rio das Pedras through the lense of commerce. Using micro businesses as drivers for new part of settlement. Starting from the point that each unit is mixed use - commerce and housing, urban design is used as an input, with providing basic infrastructure and letting incremental growth to fill in the space.
Shematic drawing of existing favela in black and interventions (in lighter color)
INTRO
The research of informal market in micro scale included much wider view of informal sector in general. It started with comparison of formal and informal sector, by defining them and searching for the linking points of those two. Relaying on the experiences from all over the world, starting from Kenya, South Africa, India, China, Roma’s slums of Europe and finally Brasil. More precies research was done after visiting favelas of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo.

This concept proposes idea of participation of informal micro commerce in formal economy, in order to provide basic level of social and economic security for workers of this sector. This bottom up project is dealing with impact of micro commerce on urban space based on study of favela Rio das Pedras.
ANALYSIS
Layer THEORY: informal market of Brasil
- participation of different social groups
- phisical and socal visibility of informal workers
- economy of informality
- programs and research papers of Ministry of Economy of Brasil based on street vending topic
- typologies of vends and vendors

Layer RESEARCH TRIP: analysing examples
- favela Rio das Pedras
- micro commerce and its impact on sidewalks and public space in general
- comparative analysis of street vending in formal part of cities and in favelas
- relations of formal and informal markets
Catalogue of micro commerce stores in Rio das Pedras
ASSUMPTION
By using the main pitfalls of the present condition of Rio das Pedras as starting points, can we make a new strategy and turn them into strengths?

- impact of micro commerce on sidewalks/urban space
- mapping positions of street trades
- finding links between formal and informal market on scale of favela
- finding ways of market supply
- proposing a scenario for new part of favela (with assumption that there will be +20.000 people in next 25 years) with micro commerce and agriculture production as a driving forces
- starting house from the shop / prposal for incremental growth
- dealing with competency of formal and informal markets inside favela
Catalogue of "quadros" in new part of Rio das Pedras. Starting from new street typology proposal and fixed dimension of plot ( 5 x 12,5 m), driven by incremental growth of self-build housing with provided infrastructure, quadros can take any inner organisation. Assumption is that first housing will appear near the roads and on the edges of quadros, since access is one of the most important catalysts for commerce development.
Illustration of one of possible development from homeless street vendor to shop owner in favela through time. Idea is to start a house from the shop, which will through development of commerce bring the owner to the bigger house and business.
CONCLUSION
After implementing strategy of new incremental growth combined with micro commerce, agriculture and formal housing, we could house 20.000 people with half density of Rio das Pedras today.
However driven by market capital and newcomers favela will grow. Idea is to introduce the basic infrastructure, grid and guide lines for future development of south part of Rio das Pedras.

Questions are:
- by giving rules could we avoid falling back to a starting point?
- will force of commerce and production be enough to provide eficient ecnomic and social development of new Rio das Pedras?
- where is the turning point from which this system will fall back in complete informality?