The inaugural issue of SLUM Lab explores the urban cultural context of Latin America as a means to reimagine the nature of cities in the Global South and the potential of design as a tool to support sustainable development outcomes in informal settlements. Produced as a free newspaper to coincide with and document the Spring 2008 Columbia University GSAPP design studio that took place in São Paulo, Brazil, the publication includes contributions from Christian Werthmann, Elito Arquitectos, Robert Neuwirth, Reinhold Martin, and the São Paulo State Housing Secretariat (SEHAB), as well as a selection of student work.

SLUM Lab 1: Paraisópolis

Publications

It’s 2017. The millennium is in its teenage years—and it shows.
The world is acting out—making rash, impulsive decisions whose repercussions may be irreparable. The body politic is moody, volatile, and uncompromising. We were born into Y2K and 9/11; our youth is part of a string of crises and rapid evolutions. Can the physical landscape weather our collective turmoil? Adolescence may be “just a phase,” but architecture, infrastructure, and policy are hard to undo.
What does it mean to be 17 in 2017? This issue of Harvard Design Magazine checks in with teens of all sorts—humans, buildings, objects, ideas—and their impact on the spatial imagination. Like a bildungsroman for the built environment, “Seventeen” dives into the treacherous, exhilarating limbo of the teen years to understand and reclaim this global adolescence.
Though stereotyped as indignant or apathetic, teenagers are also wildly optimistic, passionate, creative, and resourceful. But teenagehood is not just a physical and emotional transition; it is also a spatial one. Bursting out of their childhood homes, teens crave autonomy—so they roam  the streets, escape to virtual worlds, or hide out in bedrooms; they claim vacant lots, parks, and garages as turf; and they cruise, chill, or hang—euphemisms for the “whatever” that may or may not occur in these marginal spaces. For a discipline that defines space according to program and purpose, the nebulous teen hangout  is easily overlooked; but openness, placelessness, and aimlessness offer a realm for fantasy, common ground, and action—especially in times of challenged freedoms.
Like all teenagers, we are asking: who are we, where do we fit in, and how can we, too, make our marks—as impactful designers and as an evolving discipline? In a divided, temperamental 2017, there is much to learn from the teenager.

Seventeen

‘Athens: Arrested Development’

Globalization promised an interconnected world, yet our cities are increasingly divided. In the past decade, for example, thousands of miles of new border walls have been constructed, many in urban contexts. People embrace the idea of walls out of fear, and leaders make promises that only reinforce divisions. Boundaries, of course, are not a new phenomenon. They have historically defined communities for cultural, political, and economic purposes. As urbanization increases and economic inequality reaches record levels, however, urban divides are becoming more pervasive. This volume of Perspecta—the oldest and most distinguished student-edited architectural journal in America—investigates divides as a mechanism of urbanism, both spatially and socially complex.

Urban Divides

‘Separation Anxiety: Inequality and Exclusion in Athens and Cape Town’

The second issue of SLUM Lab critically examines prominent examples of slum upgrading projects while exploring the integration of low-resource engineering and innovative design in informal urban contexts. Produced as a free newspaper to coincide with the ‘Urban Age South America’ conference convened in São Paulo, Brazil, by the LSE Cities program, the publication includes contributions from Richard Burdett, Mark Collins, Frederic Levrat, Denise Hoffman Brandt, Christian Werthmann, Robert Neuwirth, and Mitchell Joachim, as well as a selection of student work from the Fall 2008 Columbia University GSAPP design studio focused on boundary negotiation in Grotão, Brazil.

Release	December 2008
Editors	Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner
Production	Zachary Aders, Will Kemper, Lindsey Sherman
Sponsors	Columbia University GSAPP, SEHAB
Pages	40

SLUM Lab 2: Grotão