Design Studio Housing Dignity

The housing shortage of disadvantaged groups in Brazil shows parallels to the situation in Vienna before and after the First World War. Informal and illegal settlements are often built in vulnerable peripheral locations without basic infrastructure, which entails risks such as landslides and flooding.

Social housing programs in Brazil rely on standardized typologies that are used regardless of location as part of the “Minha Casa, Minha Vida” program: four-storey four-bedroom and detached settlement houses. Both are monofunctional and offer neither communal spaces nor open spaces for informal economic activities.

In cooperation with several universities in Brazil, we want to formulate exemplary examples of contemporary answers to the “housing question”.