Archinect - News

Filling the Gap: New Architecture Discourse in Rio de Janeiro

2013-06-11T11:45:00-04:00

Since 2011, Studio-X Rio has been bringing together professionals, academics, decision makers, students, and the general public to confront the city’s most pressing challenges.

Once Unsafe, Rio's Shantytowns See Rapid Gentrification

2013-06-07T12:56:00-04:00

A new boutique hotel perched on top of one of Rio's previously most dangerous favelas is about to open. And yes, there is a jazz club and yoga, too. These are new services catering to a new kind of favela resident. "It's actually very conveniently located for my work," says Natalie Shoup, a 22-year-old American who lives in a favela called Babilonia, or Babylon. "This has a good amount of transportation to every part of the city. It's nice. It worked out really well."

On the other hand: Remaking Rio: turning an urban dystopia into an Olympic playground (The Verge)

Previously on Archinect:

Olympic Displacement: Atlanta 1996 to Rio 2016

2013-04-15T17:35:00-04:00

Atlanta and Rio are but two chapters in the long history of displacement that has accompanied mega-events like the Olympics. Similar dynamics reshaped London’s Clays Lane Estate, Beijing’s hutongs, the Marousi Roma settlement in Athens, Barcelona’s Poblenou and Seoul’s hanoks. . . . Today the people of Vila Autódromo are struggling for what housing scholar-activist Chester Hartman has aptly called “the right to stay put.”

As plans unfold for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, MIT's Lawrence Vale and Annemarie Gray consider the case of Vila Autódromo, a former fishing colony on the Olympic site whose residents have organized to resist displacement. They compare ongoing events in Rio to the demolition of Atlanta's Techwood Homes, the first public housing in America, prior to the 1996 Olympics.

Results of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Port Competition

2011-07-08T21:39:36-04:00

In the competition for the Olympic Port in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the winning entries have been announced. [...] The competition aims to rebuild the old harbor area of Rio and thus be an important agent of this long-awaited process of urban renewal for the city and the entire region.