This book shares the results of a decennial research aimed at finding housing solutions for unprivileged people in informal settlements of Brazil. To understand the spatial logics of these settlements, the author also lived in some of them. The participative observation revealed, that labour is the social practice which mostly designs, shapes and governs the spaces of informal settlements. The study shows how labour is a priority for people struggling with their physical survival, which overcomes those aesthetic, comfort and hygienic standards current architecture practice is entirely concerned about. Alongside the right to housing we must integrate the right to work, and labour must become the social variable in the design of housing solutions in the context of informal settlements. From theoretical discussions up to the operative realm of architecture in the global south, this book presents both the approach and challenges to better housing residents living in informal settlements. AUTHOR: Ana Rosa Chagas Cavalcanti studied architecture and urbanism in Brazil (2004-2009, UFAL). Her thesis on the relation of work practices practices of residents of Informal Settlements, an embedded research in the Favela Sururu de Capote, culminated with a graduation with distinction and an indication to Opera Prima 2009 (prize for best Brazilian graduation thesis). SELLING POINTS:
The first book to show how labour shapes, plans and governs the spaces of informal settlements. It shows how houses, streets and plans of favelas intertwine both domestic and labour functions and how these practices are maintained when residents are resettled in formal housing designed by institutions. The book details how the work of residents shapes space in three scales: the ground scale, the territorial scale and, the global scale
The author was the first researcher to discover this link. The results of the research have been published in some of the most prestigious journals in architecture such as Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review. These findings are extensively shared, detailed, deepened in this book 200 colour, 100 b/w images
