Brownfields refunctionalization and urban environmental problems solution: experiences in industrial areas, railways, water fronts and feasibility of projects for São Paulo

• Grant number: 14/12608-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2014
• End date: January 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography
• Principal Investigator: Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche
• Grantee: Amanda Ramalho Vasques
• Host Institution: Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/07616-7 - CEM - Center for Metropolitan Studies, AP.CEPID

Abstract

Many Brazilian cities and in special the metropolis of São Paulo, on the last decades, have devoted part of its land inventory, arising from the deindustrialization, to the real estate market (residential and business), for building of high standard enterprises, usually restricted to a limited group of beneficiaries. However, these former industrial areas now deactivated, called brownfields by the international literature, have been exploited in other countries to supply the need to create and/or expand green areas, recovering idle and contaminated areas; as supplying demands on public equipment, creating new areas for education, culture and leisure, generating new jobs. International urban experiences have established how the new ways of reconversion outlines a broad range of solutions capable of renew degraded areas and, at the same time, to provide them with the required environmental functions.Brownfieldshave been used as strategic projects levers in order to transform these degraded zones by introducing new uses and functions. Therefore, the goal is to know the reached results by these experiences on the transformation of problematic areas, through the investigation of the intervention practices. Far from seeking models, the quest is to analyze the strategic feedback that demonstrate feasibility in industrial reconversion projects, enabling the guidance of actions to the Brazilian context - mostly to the metropolis of São Paulo. The city encompasses a series of urban problems that comes from its industrial historic function, structured by the railway axis from the E.F. Santos-Jundiaí, as by the recent changes in the industrial soil uses. On the last decades, these changes imposed new features to the spatial configurations: industrial facades, many probably contaminated, building in ruins, idle areas, underused railways, abandoned warehouses and constant demolitions. This study contributes to analyze environmental, socioeconomic, political and landscape issues in an interdisciplinary manner, in different projects on brownfields areas (identification, mapping, planning, redevelopment and preservation), to take advantage from the potentialities of these spaces to solve environmental and urban issues. Among the frequently faced problems are: the lack of green areas, soil contamination, infrastructures abandonment, builds in ruins used by illegal occupation, lack of recreational areas, housing, public equipment's, amid others. In this study, old aerial photographs, recent high resolution satellite images and field works will aid the analyzes and identification of brownfields groups ready for the redevelopment inside the boundaries of the Joint Urban Operations (OUC) Centro and Mooca - Vila Carioca in São Paulo, mapping its surroundings and verifying the feasibility of redevelopment projects to these areas. Among the expected results, is to analyze future spatial scenarios and trends for the redeveloped areas based on the international experiences; the diagnosis of local brownfields in the city of São Paulo and the quest to intervene more properly. The importance to recognize these issues relay on the future use of brownfields, while land stock that will serve as basis for the planning in many cities that seek to become resilient; looking to response to the issues, reinventing and restoring socioeconomic and environmental quality for its townspeople spaces.