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

After spending last year traipsing below the border to break ground on his first few projects in Mexico, Richard Meier is heading below the equator to start his first South American project: a light, modernist office building in the beach-lined metropolis and future Olympic host city Rio de Janeiro. — ARTINFO

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

The man who was awarded the 1988 Pritzker Prize continues to devote his afternoons to working on new projects, including a theatre with a capacity for 2 500 people on Flamengo Park, near Rio's Sugarloaf Mountain.

"I came up with a solution that is capable of prompting surprise and attracting the public: a magnificent dome which would be built before the Sugarloaf Mountain," he recently wrote. — timeslive.co.za

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. — bustler.net

... 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

Brazilian real estate developer Gafisa decided to ask people directly, what they want in their new apartments? Launched last week, the Edifício Colaborativo (Collaborative Building) initiative transformed the company’s fan page on Facebook in a crowdsourcing platform, intended to harvest innovative ideas for a new building. — PSFK

The tower is unmistakably a Niemeyer creation. Standing tall in the heat of Brazil’s interior, it’s concrete dressed in a whitewash, the tower, like all his other creations looks as if it has been plucked from a 1960s conception of a city on the moon. — therealbrazil.com

Thousands of children in Brazil have built what organisers say is the world's tallest Lego tower - with a bit of help from parents and a crane. Organisers say the tower, which was made with 500,000 pieces and measured over 102ft, beat a previous record held in Chile. — bbc.co.uk