Author(s): Eduardo Aquino & Amanda Reis
Strangers in our own land, strangers in our city, we inhabitants of the metropolis feel the spaces not dominated by architecture as reflections of our own insecurity, of our vague wanderings through limitless spaces that, in our position external to the urban system, to power, to activity, constitute both a physical expression of our fear and insecurity and our expectation of the other, the alternative, the utopian, the future.¹ —Ignasi de Solà-Morales in *Terrain Vague* OCA1 emerged as an opportunity to address the confluence of two common research interests: community-oriented design and popular culture as manifested through urban materiality. Carmen Silva—urban planner, educator, activist for housing rights in the city, and a leader of the MSTC (Movimento Sem-Teto do Centro, or “Downtown Homeless Movement”)—posed a challenge to conceive a “chapel” (or “oca”), addressing a central need for her community: a space for social and spiritual sustainability. The project resulted in a structure fabricated from used public market crates discarded on the streets of São Paulo.
Volume Editors
Reed Kroloff & Francisco J. Rodríguez-Suárez
ISBN
978-1-944214-52-4