ComuniDADOS: Visualizing Situated Data

ComuniDADOS is a platform designed to support the research, educational, and social justice goals of CHAPA by not only documenting but actively transforming the housing landscapes of consolidated urban settlements. Originally developed under NSF grant #1513395 to visualize data comparing two settlements in São Paulo, ComuniDADOS is now expanding to include the communities we have collaborated with since. Within Chapa’s Design Action Framework, ComuniDADOS transforms community-collected data about existing conditions into alternative future scenarios.

CHAPA at UN Habitat III in Quito

In 2016, Chapa co-hosted a side event “Participatory Technologies for Slum Upgrading” at the UN Habitat III conference, in collaboration with the Santa Fe Institute and Slum Dwellers International.

Watch our presentation here.

Peripheral Mass Housing in São Paulo: How much displacement?

In 2016, Kristine Stiphany and Peter Ward undertook a study about what low-income families stand to lose by moving from an informal settlement to a Minha Casa Minha Vida housing development, far from critical social and physical infrastructures and neighborhood advantages.

Read the peer-reviewed publication here.

Youth empowerment for housing research

Beginning in the fall of 2019, Chapa began established a collaboration with the UNAS community organization, centered on its youth – based data lab the Observatório Olho na Quebrada. Over the past year, a cohort of two members has been involved in a follow up study about rental in Heliópolis.

Design Action: Brownie Neighborhood Park

This award-winning project in Austin, Texas built on a community-led design process to transform a vacant 7-acre tract into an intergenerational recreational destination, designed in collaboration with local residents. It connects to educational facilities, creates a buffer to the light industrial zone to the east, and bridges to the Rundberg neighborhood, one of Austin’s most diverse areas, to the west.

Between these surrounding areas, the Brownie Neighborhood Park was designed around a recreational loop and strip that support regenerative landscapes, recreational facilities, and habitats, including an outdoor learning laboratory for the local school. The design of Brownie Park allows for phased implementation, ensuring that environments can adapt as the neighborhood evolves.

Latin American Urban Design Lab

The Latin American Urban Design Lab is an applied research initiative that promotes the role of design for solving problems linked to rapid urbanization in the Latin global south and along the US-Mexico border. It is supported by the Texas Tech University College of Architecture.

The LAUD-LAB is structured around research clusters in the areas of urban resilience, housing, and infrastructure; and sponsored research studios in Brazil (2018), Ecuador (2019), and Mexico (2020).

Mapping Housing Densification and the spread of COVID – 19 in Heliópolis

During the global coronavirus pandemic, we mapped the relationship between housing density and COVID-19 spread in the Heliópolis favela.

This map is one of several tools that the community organization UNAS (Union of Núcleos and Associations of São João Climaco) has used to fight exposure and alleviate the hardships that disproportionately afflict low-income neighborhoods like Heliópolis.

This study guided a recent graduate studio that resulted in proposals for sensitive densification in Heliópolis.

National Science Foundation research: morphologies of incremental housing change

Chapa stems from a Participatory Action Research project funded by the National Science Foundation, “Constructing Empirical Public Decision-Making: The Application of Situated Data to Development in Consolidated Informal Settlements.”

Read the project brief here.

New or not? Incremental Housing Now

To understand how incremental housing changes in Brazilian favelas, we mapped and modeled hundreds of informal dwellings across two of São Paulo’s largest informal settlements. We focused specifically on how the rise in rent is reshaping the character and form of communities.

Strategic Infill along the Tamanduateí Corridor

This project designs housing into São Paulo’s industrial Tamanduateí Crescent.