Later this month, about 900 of the 1,500 families who live in Vila União will start to move out to make way for the TransOlímpica rapid bus system (BRT) to be built for the 2016 Rio Olympics. It is one of the biggest favela resettlements since Rio was chosen to host the games, with some 500 families also resettled from 2010 to 2011 for the construction of the TransOeste BRT. — Al Jazeera

Through the free-flowing talent of Costa, Niemeyer, Burle Marx and Athos Bulcão, Brasília—the only city built in the 20th century that is listed by Unesco—has captivated the world since 1960. But the federal capital has not made Modernism sacred in the country as a whole and the protection of Modern architecture is still in its infancy. — theartnewspaper.com

Police simulations such as these offer a peculiarly spatial insight into the ways humans attempt to make sense of the world. [...]

Someone builds a surrogate or a stand-in—a kind of stage-set on which to test their most viable theories—then they control that replicant world down to every curb height and door frame. Architecture then comes along simply as ornamentation, in order to give this virtual world a physical footprint — bldgblog.blogspot.com

It is envisioned as one of the grandest parties in the Western Hemisphere—the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro will be the first South American city to host the quadrennial showpiece, and the events in “Cidade Maravilhosa” (Marvelous City) are expected to constitute one of the most expansive Games ever. [...]

However, concern that Rio might not be ready in time for the Games is growing louder. — urbanland.uli.org

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

In the projects shown here, architects and artists reflect on the problems and possibilities of economic and urban growth. How is rapid urbanization happening? Who is benefiting, and who is being displaced or excluded? What can architects and citizens do to exert leverage on processes at once local and global? — Places Journal

Your assignment is to come up with an idea so revolutionary that it could be considered an important advance in industrial design.

Students at Rice University in Houston accomplished that with plans for a floating city that is being considered by one of the world's largest oil companies. Last year, the students won the inaugural Odebrecht Award for a radical design of man-made floating islands where as many as 25,000 oil workers and their families could live. — npr.org

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

Less than five months before Brazil's World Cup kicks off, 6 out of 12 venues are still unfinished -- including a complex in the northern city of Manaus, where construction workers have died and pay for laborers is an issue. Fifa has warned Brazil's World Cup 2014 host city of Curitiba that it could be excluded unless work speeds up. — marketplace.org

Authorities in Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, have fought a major blaze at a landmark building designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer.

A large plume of smoke billowed from the Latin America Memorial, a cultural centre which hosts an art gallery, an auditorium and other facilities. — bbc.co.uk

Brazil's World Cup preparations suffered a deadly setback on Wednesday when a roof collapsed killing at least two building workers at the São Paulo stadium that is due to host the opening match.

Coming a week before the draw for next year's tournament, the fatalities revive concerns about unsafe infrastructure and the slow pace of construction, which have dogged the hosts for more than a year. — theguardian.com

Lina Bo Bardi was loyal more to an emancipating concept of modernity than to the abstract, formal language of modern architecture. Her thinking and practice were situated at the intersection of different worldviews: north and south, city and hinterland, privilege and deprivation, modernism and tradition, past and present, abstraction and social realism. As she declared in 1989, “I didn’t make myself alone. I am curious and this quality broadens my horizons. ... I am somehow special.” — Places Journal

Earlier this week, we published the winners of the recent [RIO DE JANEIRO] Symbolic World Cup Structure competition which challenged architects to design a freestanding World Cup Structure on Rio de Janeiro's central Lapa Square during the 2014 FIFA Soccer World Cup. Winner of the First Place was the Mekene Architecture-designed entry 'Wing of Glory' which you can find in more detail below. — bustler.net

The [RIO DE JANEIRO] Symbolic World Cup Structure competition has announced its winners. Hosted by [AC-CA], the international ideas competition invited architects and students of architecture and engineering to design a freestanding World Cup Structure on Rio de Janeiro's lively Lapa Square during the 2014 FIFA Soccer World Cup. — bustler.net

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. — Domus