Green Cities Rio de Janeiro

Please join CSU as we welcome our guest speaker Dr. Theresa Williamson, Ph.D., and moderator Lance Jay Brown, FAIA on Wednesday, August 7, 2024 from 12 PM – 1 PM ET for our next Green Cities Event of 2024! 

Talk abstract:

Residents across Rio de Janeiro’s favela communities have been adapting to climate change and coming up with development solutions in the absence of public investment for a century. Today, hundreds of grassroots organizers have come together as the Sustainable Favela Network, to recognize, strengthen, consolidate and produce these solutions at scale. 

Within the network, Climate Memory Circles realized by favela museums produced a traveling exhibition that emotionally communicates the interconnected, historic and ongoing injustices favela residents face with climate as a pretext. Grassroots green roofs, solar, sewerage and agroforestry projects inspire a picture of future development that holds nature at the center while addressing systemic inequality. Community youth take data generation into their own hands, understanding that without data, there can be no policy, and that data produced and owned by the community is more accurate, nuanced and powerful in producing change. And incipient Favela Community Land Trusts give us a peek into how land rights can be structured to guarantee the basic needs to belonging and rootedness, heritage and environmental preservation, and economic development, without speculation and displacement.

Through a social justice lens on history, this presentation flips the script on informal settlements, with Rio’s favelas lighting the way. Are informal settlements simply the present-day form organic human settlements take? Could it be that in this way they are more aligned with natural rhythms and systems than formal architecture? Is there a double-standard towards them, produced through the mounting systems of structural inequality our cities have amassed over several centuries? Dr. Williamson’s talk will provide a fresh look at informal settlements that centers them in the search for solutions to climate change and social justice.

Speaker:

Dr. Theresa Williamson, Ph.D.

Theresa Williamson, Ph.D., is a city planner, community organizer, environmentalist and founding executive director of Catalytic Communities, an NGO providing strategic support to Rio de Janeiro’s favela community organizers since 2000. She is known for her committed advocacy for the recognition of favelas’ heritage status, resident rights and community-controlled sustainable development. CatComm's asset-based programs, co-created and co-produced with hundreds of favela partners, include RioOnWatch, the Sustainable Favela Network, and Favela Community Land Trust project. Dr. Williamson earned her B.A. in Biological Anthropology from Swarthmore College and PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. Awards include: Brazilian Federation of Architects and Urbanists prize for contribution to Brazilian cities, Megafone Award for independent investigative reporting, Anthem Award for Best Local Awareness Program, American Society of Rio prize for contributions to the city, and the NAHRO Award for contributions to the international housing debate.

Moderator / Host:

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, DPACSA, NOMA 

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, DPACSA, NOMA is a founding board member and Past President of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization. He taught at Princeton and is the former Chair and Director of the Spitzer School of Architecture, CCNY. Educated at the Cooper Union he holds two master’s degrees from the GSD at Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA). He is ACSA Distinguished Professor for Life and received the coveted AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education. He has edited and authored numerous publications and consults, teaches, and lectures nationally and internationally.

Learning Objectives 

1. Learn about Rio de Janeiro's informal settlements and the positive paths they suggest.

2. Discuss how Rio de Janeiro's informal settlements develop and implements integrated sustainable policies.

3. Illustrate how the Rio de Janeiro's favela communities develop climate change solutions in the absence of public investment.

4. Identify how Rio de Janeiro's favelas recognize, strengthen, consolidate and produce climate change solutions at scale.
 

Sponsor Organization for Green Cities:

Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization (CSU), UN-Habitat, AIA New York, AIANY Planning & Design, the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, Habitat Professionals Forum for Sustainable Cities, Creative Exchange Lab (CEL), Global Urban Development (GUD), and the Columbia University Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space (CBIPS).

Photo credit: Sustainable Favela Network