A futuristic tower for downtown São Paulo

Projects for towering, modern skyscrapers abound in new cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi. However, when proposed for Latin American metropolises, they're often taken with some skepticism and/or criticism. In fact, they rarely materialise. And when they do, it’s not always plain sailing.

Even projects in Europe such as The Shard in London and Agbar Tower in Barcelona have love-hate relationships with their host cities. São Paulo has already seen a few megalomaniac projects proposed and this time around, it is architect, Eduardo Camarena, who proposes a highly modern "vertical city" for a gritty part of downtown São Paulo, known as Praça da Bandeira.

Though only a concept, the tower would encompass indoor public spaces, a pay per hour capsule hotel, as well as offices, theatres and a rooftop domed garden. We’re not sure if the project will ever become reality, but it's certainly an eye-catcher!

The rooftop Garden of Eduardo Camarena's project

What do you think? Would it improve São Paulo’s centro or would it be a waste of money?

VERTICAL CITY // SAO PAULO from eduardo camarena on Vimeo.

The economic cost of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo’s transport failures

FIRJAN (the Industry Federation of the State of Rio de Janeiro) has just released data on the cost of traffic congestion in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. They estimate that together the two cities lost a staggering R$ 98 billion last year, the equivalent of 8% of the cities’ total GDP and 2% of Brazil’s GDP.

Traffic jams are part of daily life in São Paulo

This amount only takes into account lost work hours and doesn’t factor in the health impact of car fuel emissions on the general population or other indirect impacts on the economy. And yet even this conservative estimate is equivalent to the cost of building 200km of extra metro lines every single year!

In fact the amount lost yearly is bigger than the estimated budget for transport capital investment in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina combined. 

How the results will be interpreted, however, is another matter. The more congestion is seen as a problem, the more consideration is given to building extra lanes and highways thereby reinforcing the car culture. 

In a country where car ownership is increasing, local governments need to start thinking about long term solutions focused on encouraging the use of alternate transportation rather than accommodating additional cars which in turn will attract yet more vehicles onto the roads.

Mini parks get official funding and become part of São Paulo street life

Green and accessible are not words usually associated with São Paulo but the new mini-parks planned for the city aim to make the city just that; more green and more people-focused.

The mini-parks, known as parklets have already cropped up in various areas of the city as part of Environment week last year. Fernando Haddad, the mayor, obviously took a liking to the green initiative and they are now officially part of the city planning policy by decree.

A temporary parklet, part of Environment week 2013

Parklets were conceived in San Francisco in 2010 as a way of creating greener cities. They are essentially tiny parks, the size of a fraction of a car parking space. It is a flexible concept which can but does not have to include items such as benches, trees, chairs or bike stands.

Gaining in popularity worldwide they have started to appear in various parts of the world over recent years but São Paulo will be the largest city to officially adopt them.