[...] Penn State landscape architecture professor Timothy Baird and architecture professor José Duarte taught a new studio that engaged students in the study of one Brazilian favela via virtual reality (VR) technology. The studio, which paired architecture students with landscape architecture students, posited VR as a proxy for expensive site visits. “Developing countries can’t always afford consultants because of the distance and difficulty to travel,” says Baird [...] — Landscape Architecture Magazine

For decades, state neglect forced a pace of progress that was slow and painful in Rio’s favelas, which – unlike many other informal settlements around the world – have a largely stable population. While some residents express satisfaction that state involvement has brought new income streams and improved security, there is anger that changes are imposed from outside, without consultation with residents. — the Guardian

‘El mejor anuncio de la historia’, or ‘the best ad in history’ is a picture taken in February 2008, which neatly encapsulates several aspects of the city’s urban landscape: the formal, the informal and the promotional.

'[...]Around and in between the super bloques a carpet of slums has grown, an organism that now seems to bind the blocks together in some symbiotic relationship. These are the kind of hybrid forms that are developing in Latin American cities [...]’ — failedarchitecture.com

A Milwaukee bar called Nomad World Pub wanted to create a special place for its customers to watch the World Cup, so it decided to set up a faux favela inspired by Rio de Janeiro’s poverty-stricken mountainside slums. The fact the space comes with a taco hut — a type of food not even served in Brazil — reveals the depth of ignorance out of which it was created. You have to wonder: is the menu in Spanish too? — hyperallergic.com

Brazil’s burgeoning middle class have an important place in the country’s slums. This finding is part of a survey released by the newly created Instituto Data Favela which established that, in 2013, 65% of the country’s slum-dwellers belonged to the middle class. In 2003, this proportion was 33%. [...]

“But we are not only interested in the middle class,” he argues, “We want to benefit all community residents through sustainable and comprehensive development, achieved through economic avenues.” — thisbigcity.net

Rio de Janeiro is set to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games and there are two starkly different visions of what that will mean for the "marvelous city," as it is known[...]

"Instead of creating a space of conviviality, a space of shared culture, of community, of conversation, you are going to have this very isolated element where after 5 o'clock in the afternoon, it's going to be dead. You are creating banks, parking lots, Trump towers," Gaffney said. "It's been rezoned for 50-story buildings." — npr.org

Orhan Ayyüce penned a remembrance to his friend architect Larry Totah, titled Slow Weather of Architecture. Therein he describes "The House"...overlooking Pacific Ocean rather edgewise and build like a long drawing depicting a horizontally composed architecture. The fog, roof and the walls are more of Chumash hiring Hopi to build on their mountains for few exquisite basket full of shellfish to adorn the wedding dresses in Hopi villages like the ones a Don Juan dreamed of, a fair exchange"...

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." — npr.org

The authorities think progress is demolishing our community just so they can host the Olympics for a few weeks — NYT

I am back home, in Rio, and have made an architectonic-cinematographic collaboration with filmmaker Rogerio Boettger. The 5-hour film must be produced, shot and edited within a period of five hours. — University of Edinburgh (Roberto)

... in Rio de Janeiro, city officials are working with architects to integrate the notorious favelas with the rest of the city by new cable car lines and a walkway designed by famed architect Oscar Niemeyer designed. Rio's government and business community are also funding the Morar Carioca architectural competition that will hire 30 architects to build healthy homes, schools, and clinics for the city's poorest 200,000 residents. — guardian.co.uk