Brazil, Rio de Janeiro
FC-01x Future Cities (Self-Paced) - Exercise 1 : "Making the Invisible - Visible"
Uploaded on 2017-04-12 by Saulo Macedo
this is a view from the Tijuca neighborhood, in Rio. Tijuca is best known to be quite populous, close to city center and mostly middle class, with its inhabitants varying from quite rich to slightly poor (certainly not as poor as some of the more distant areas). as a result of this inequality, it was viewed as quite dangerous up to about 10 years ago and, apparently, crime has been on the rise on the last year or so. the image (taken from the 11th floor of an already elevated building) shows the difference between high density, upper class buildings (foreground) and high density, lower class houses in the favela (slums, on the background). WHAT IS VISIBLE? – high density, upper class housing – high density, lower class housing – inequality WHAT IS NOT VISIBLE? – city infrastructure (or lack of thereof) – crime statistics WHAT CAN BE MADE VISIBLE? looking from afar, living in the hills of the favela appear to be quite pleasant, maybe even more so than the highly packed buildings of the middle class. however, the total lack of infrastructure means that people in the favela lack the most basic needs, such as easy street access, public transportation and even sanitation sometimes, while a lot of the upper class buildings have not only that, but also private luxury facilities, as a playground, a pool or a sauna (something that was considered "trendy" in Brazil for sometime). this may not be the primary cause, but it certainly fuels resentment that leads to violence and street crime. so, I'm thinking this lack of infrastructure could be made visible by an overlay, augmented reality app, that showed city infrastructure and its condition as a way of raising awareness of other people's living condition.