Cidade de Deus ! / City of God !

Rio de Janeiro serves as the inspiration and case study for this publication, a widely relevant study of the appropriation and customization of standardized mass housing over time. The city’s once notorious favelas, which grew out of a government housing programme, are today safe and vibrant neighbourhoods, not to mention a viable counter-model to gated condominiums. This research-based design study from the ETH Zurich unpacks the implications of the hybrid environment of Cidade de Deus as it exists today. What results is a model for improving mass housing programmes using the ingenuity of informal practices – a model that is also globally applicable.