architecture - Sam Fox School - Washington University in St. Louis

Fall 2010
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and institutions. Others are mixed-use complexes usually called
galerias and contain offices, shops, and even housing. Some
of them are iconic, such as Oscar Niemeyer’s Edifício Copan,
Giancarlo Gasperini’s Galeria Metrópole, and David Libeskind’s
Conjunto Nacional, while others have more anonymous authors
but are just as lively.
Those structures and their interstitial landscapes were
particularly popular between the 1950s and 1980s, but as the
city kept growing according to privatized models of housing,
business districts, and shopping malls since the after that period,
traditional commercial activities and more affluent residents
moved out of the central areas. As a result, they tended to either
accommodate new kinds of activities or fall in disrepair. More
recently, however, they have once again gained new meaning and
interest as part of the process of revitalization of core urban areas
in a city where problems of property and personal safety have
increased, and new forms of collective use have emerged.
Goals
The main goal of this comprehensive studio is to revisit interstitial
landscape typologies in São Paulo as a means for investigating the
relationship architecture maintains with urban and landscape
design. While exploring those specific architectural features,
students should expand their understanding of how architecture
can contribute to the public life of large and dense urban areas.
Participants will be responsible for developing collective research
and self-initiated individual design hypotheses. Proposals will
start with the definition of programs for enclosed and open private
and public spaces, aiming to integrate the selected site as an
extension to the urban fabric of the Anhangabaú Valley and to the
pedestrian spaces that exist in the downtown area.
Design projects should articulate tangible and intangible, physical
and experiential factors. They should consider site and program
as fundamental elements for creating and sustaining spaces of
public and semi-public access and collective use. They should also
provide concrete evidence of students’ ability to deal with a range
of different design scales and to clearly articulate both conceptual
and concrete aspects of the design process. Proposals should
ultimately be able to – in line with Aldo van Eyck’s thinking – offer
to the city more than it takes from it.
Site
This studio will focus on a mid-size lot in the historic center of
São Paulo, located in an underdeveloped area of Anhangabaú
Valley. The site offers an ideal setting for exploring the