INCLUSIVE BUSINESS

DeLab: solutions about inclusive business
The current frame on sustainable architecture in
poverty contexts: features and comments
The methods and strategies adopted in order to guarantee
the minimum well being connected with dwellings
and urban space can vary widely and involved architects
and designers to find a better way to accomplish
decent standards of living. At the moment there are several
realities dealing with an eco-friendly idea of architecture
located in poverty contexts. In the following, some
examples will be introduced to show how architecture
can reverse conditions of inequality and poverty, improving
deprived neighbourhoods. Crucial, to this end, is the
engagement of locals as employees and beneficiaries to
the point of seeing the built environment as a catalyst for
social changes.
Researches and projects are continously experimenting
strategies to improve living conditions, like the
participatory process of the “Favela-Bairro” i project in
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil -architect Sérgio Magalhães).
The project sought to integrate existing favelas into the
fabric of the city through infrastructure upgrading and
service improvements. “Key to the success of this large
project was a committed and flexible city government
and the use of intra- and extra-institutional partnerships
with NGOs, the private sector, churches, and the general
population.” ii
In recent times in the architectural press rose up a
renovated attention renovated attention for local practices
that propose contemporary style building using local
materials and techniques, such as Komitu architects iii ,
with their recent work “Kouk Khleang Youth Centre” in
Cambodia ; also in this case the future users of the building
and members of the surrounding community had an
essential role in the design process, the materials used
were local or recycled.
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