Uploaded on 2016-04-24 by StephanieMessal

Here is a picture of the house that was built next to our first residence when we were living in Canto da Lagoa (in the Atlantic tropical forest), a district of Florianopolis, a city in southern Brazil. Many things to say about it : - I was very surprised that the workers didn't destroy/demolish the old house. They just removed all the stuff : the glasses of the window, the bricks, the ceramic elements like the sink, etc. All the removed elements were reused in the construction in a way. The rest was brought out of the garden at the end of the project. - The house was located on the heights of the forest. As the access was very difficult because of the very steep road, all the construction material has been brought by the workers. - They built by themselves the structure for the reinforced concrete pole of the new house. Everything was made "by hand", in an old school style. They never used heavy machineries. - They use a part of the structure of the old house to build the new one. It was very interesting to see how the workers found solutions and were also capable to manage with the stuff and the environmental elements. They worked all days even during heavy tropical rains, so the presence of the umbrella ! Now what about the "globalized" construction in Brazil ? There are few elements, as the steel, that might come from importation as Brazil imports more and more steel over the last years. Generally, the materials are "made in" Brazil like for example the "Drykomanta" (asphalt roofing). The wooden boards also are from Brazil (they are reused and reused for different building sites). The little use of imported material is surely due to Brazilian protectionist policy: there is a 60% import tax which encourages the use of local materials over imported ones. [1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14615256006060546.jpg