Informal Toolbox: SLUM Lab Paraisópolis documents part of an evolving conversation between SLUM Lab researchers from Columbia University GSAPP, governmental organizations engaged in informal settlement upgrading, human rights activists, and partner academic institutions, all of whom share a belief that architecture has the potential to act transformatively in critical urban areas. This bilingual publication was produced as a collaboration between the São Paulo State Housing Secretariat (SEHAB) and Urban-Think Tank, and presents a catalogue of projects that work as a toolbox of ideas, with the aim of integrating precarious communities and the formal city through urban and land regulation, access to infrastructure, and improvement in environmental, habitability, and health conditions. It originated out of extended and ongoing research around São Paulo, and specifically within the Paraísopolis favela.

Informal Toolbox: SLUM Lab Paraisópolis

Publications

Informal City: Caracas Case is the result of an urban research project initiated in the Venezuelan capital by the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes) and Urban-Think Tank. This publication is a form of compendium of informal and cultural developments that pertain not only to Caracas, but to almost every Latin American metropolis. Including contributions from Saskia Sassen, Sabine Bitter, Helmut Weber, Neil Smith, Marjetica Potrc, and Armando Silva, it offers a new urbanism applicable to cities around the world and makes the need for a profound change in our understanding of urban culture evident.

Informal City: Caracas Case

Produced as a special anniversary edition to mark ten issues of SLUM Lab, this volume of the magazine also functions as a catalogue accompanying the retrospective exhibition Si/No: The Architecture of Urban-Think Tank that opened in the Hauptgebäude at ETH Zürich in October 2015, and will be on view at the Architekturmuseum der TU München in der Pinakothek der Moderne from November 2015 to February 2016. Presented as a curated anthology of Urban‑Think Tank’s published work dating back to 2002, the magazine includes essays, articles, book extracts, excerpts from out-of-print back issues, archival and documentary photo essays, as well as new contributions from Andres Lepik and Justin McGuirk.

SLUM Lab 10: Si/No

The São Paulo Architecture Experiment documents a collaboration between the São Paulo State Housing Secretariat (SEHAB), Urban-Think Tank, and various international partners focused on a reconsideration of minimal habitation in dense urban space. The project proposes that architects eschew their conventional role in traditional hierarchies and instead act as an enabling connection between the opposing forces of top-down planning and bottom-up initiatives. The book focuses on issues related to São Paulo’s urban development, covering topics such as water management, waste recycling, slum morphology, and economic development.

Release	August 2010
Editors	Alfredo Brillembourg, Hubert Klumpner, Elisabete França
Design	Zachary Aders, Melissa Ramos, Willem Boning
Language	English, Portuguese
Publisher	Prefeitura da Cidade de São Paulo
Pages	120