SOLIDARY MODULE
2019 conception
2020 executive drawings
Project for a module of bath and laundry for the homeless population in Rio's downtown
Architect: Vera Hazan
Colaborations: Luciano Alvares and Roberto Lucas Jr.
Team: Carla Felix, Eduarda Bond, Federica Linares, José Luís Ferreira, Júlia de Queiroz, Ricardo Bayão and Raphael Younes
Location: Avenida chile, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Engineers: Michel Araújo and Caio Cerqueira
Contractor: GYPCENTER
Client: Pastoral da População de Rua / Arquidiocese do Rio de Janeiro
The social inequality and lack of urbanity in the big Brazilian cities instigated this project, made by the Humanitarian Architecture Laboratory at the Model Office of the PUC-Rio’s Department of Architecture and Urbanism in association with the Rio de Janeiro’s Archdiocese. Even though it has as its target audience people in situation of extreme vulnerability, and more specifically the homeless population, the project intends to attend everyone that may have necessity to use it, including informal worker and those that are solely passing through Rio’s downtown.
With the uses defined alongside the Pastoral da População de Rua, the modules designed offer public toilets, baths, laundry, drinking waterfountain, beauty saloon, space for storage of donations and for workshops and rehearsals of the Pastoral's choir. To reenforce this iniciative and the duty of the Arquidiocese to the poor, it was chosen to install the prototype inside the Rio's Cathedral's terrain, in an area of easy access and visibility, at Avenida Chile, near important corporative and institucional public buildings.
The space defined for the module alongside the church was a parking lot before. With the economic crisis in the city of Rio, a great portion of this area became obsolete and, therefore, avaible for other uses. The Solidary Module in the Cathedral is part of a bigger plan, that intends to multiply this idea in the future. Hence, the construction system needed to be low-cost, durable, with easy maintenance, fast construction and possible to receive adaptations and be repositioned if need be.
To creat better thermal comfort and a bigger interaction between the users, a shade area was proposed, with space for tables and seatings, that can merge with the shade provided the great almod tree in the lot. The area was also designed to host the breakfast donations and other activities, including events. This way, a greater empathy can be created with the external public, in order to reduce the conflicts between the formal and informal city and show the importance of such projects for social integration and creation of labor and income.
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