MIT, Brazil, and the Challenge of Housing / Dean Sarkis and MIT Professor Adèle Naudé Santos discuss a new collaborative

The School of Architecture and Planning and the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) at MIT have established a long-term initiative to rethink the future of affordable housing in Brazil, which faces an estimated shortage of 7 million units.

“The affordable housing gap — already a significant problem in Brazil — is growing wider,” says Gabriel Kozlowski, an architect and researcher who is part of the LCAU team. “Rethinking the architecture as well as the urban and economic models currently being implemented in the housing sector in Brazil is the first step toward providing better living conditions for millions of residents.”

The initiative is a combined effort among Brazilian academic institutions, research labs, and the private sector, in collaboration with MIT. The core local participants include the School of Architecture and Urbanism of São Paulo (FAU-USP); Arq.Futuro, Brazil’s largest platform devoted to the study and discussion of cities and urbanization; and the Institute of Urbanism and Studies for the Metropolis (URBEM), a “do-tank” for the conceptualization and implementation of large-scale urban development projects in São Paulo and other global cities.

Several other Brazilian institutions are joining the initiative, including INSPER, São Paulo’s leading center of education and research in the fields of business and economics, and the two largest private organizations representing the real estate sector in the state of São Paulo: the São Paulo State Housing Syndicate, SECOVI, and the Brazilian Association of Real Estate Companies, ABRAINC.

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Research activities will commence in 2017. During the spring — supported by a five-year grant offered by the São Paulo Research Foundation — the architecture school FAU-USP will gather a team of faculty and researchers led by architect Angelo Bucci to engage in a long-term project on housing.

“Housing is the primordial and most permanent theme of architecture,” says Bucci. “It is of the highest relevance to promote a cycle of research and debate that addresses new architectural designs necessary for today’s cities.”

The framework of the research is being developed in collaboration with MIT, which will also exchange faculty and students for short research periods over the next five years. During summer 2017, Santos will take MIT students to São Paulo for a workshop as part of the LCAU biennial theme of housing.