Jacarezinho Project

Jacarezinho Project

Rio : Jacarezinho & the private space

March, 2000. Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Jens Fischer / Alejandra Gonsebatt

The favela Jacarezinho is the result of rural depopulation in the search for work. People settled by the squatting on fallow land.

The first basic wooden huts were later overbuilt, replaced by stone and concrete buildings. The method of construction enable other family members to move in. In the structure were reflected the needs, preferences and characteristics of the owners’daily life. The rooms are furnished with the culture of their owners. One view into a room makes accessible many elements in order to get an idea.

In the course of the project „Celula Urbana“ – the building of a cultural centre on an inhabited parcel of land of the favela – we interviewed the families concerned. During the conversation evolved themes like origin, belonging, their hopes, their relationship to their quarter, to their neighbors, to the family and to the outside.

Main themes were the settlement in Jacarezinho, the founding ot the own family, the building of the own house, the changes of this in connection with the changes in the family.

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Video from Alejandra Gonsebatt and Jens Fischer to the Project Celula urbana – Bauhaus Jacarezinho
Model Project of Bauhaus Dessau Foundation: Favela Jacarecino, Rio de Janeiro, 2000-2004
A quarter of the world´s population today is living in "slums" or "squatter" settlements. Most built on illegallyoccupated land. The people have no claim on "their" plots and on regular urban supply of water and power.The slums, apparently inevitable elements of urban agglomerations, became one of the largest problems of the present withunpredictable political and social risks.
In 2000 the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation was invited by the city administration of Rio de Janeiro, to develop a project withinthe context of the Favela Bairro program. The goal was to turn one of the misery accomodation boroughs into a model project for oneof the 500 Favelas in the Brazilian metropolis. This international cooperation on a Favela project represented an innovation.

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