Boundaries to membranes : the urban project revisited : an urban strategy for Rio de Janeiro, Zona Norte

Abstract

This thesis investigates urban boundaries in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro. The Zona Norte transitioned in the last hundred years from a rural outskirts area of Rio, into its industrial hinterland, into a fully urbanized dense fabric today. Currently the area is challenged by extreme socio-economic and environmental problems. Zona Norte also has potential for vast redevelopment soon due to the investments for World Cup and Olympics as well as the development of the outer ring road, Arco Metropolitano, which is currently under construction. The research question underlying my design proposal is: How can new infrastructure investments be used as triggers to pair new development with spatial design solutions for the existing social and environmental issues in the Zona Norte? The research develops the hypothesis that build-up boundaries in the Zona Norte, between strictly defined land uses can be broken down and made more permeable through urban design. A detailed analysis of industry-favela clusters unravels this problematic based on a twofold reasoning: Industrial areas and favelas are the sites of most profound social and environmental issues and these clusters contain the sharpest boundaries between land use planning areas and infrastructures. Through a systemic analysis of one of these clusters, Fazenda Botafogo, I define a strategy for breaking these boundaries that can be replicated in similar sites across the metro area. The design activates boundaries with new program, circulation, and development to reconfigure different neighborhoods and stimulate a more robust, diverse fabric without thick boundaries of exclusion and separation. The specific porosity-strategies therefore are the recalibration of infrastructures, the reconfiguration of landscape and the introduction of program-mix and public space. The result is a cohesive urban fabric and mixed-use development that frames river remediation sites and new landscape capacities for environmental improvement.