On Sunday, September 28, 2025, Parque da Jóia, located in the Butantã neighborhood of São Paulo, will host the 4th Festival da Jóia, an event celebrating socio-environmental regeneration, community culture, and environmental education. This year, the festival officially integrates the program of the 14th São Paulo International Architecture Biennial, directly engaging with its central themes: preserving forests and reforesting cities, and coexisting with water.
Organized by the Gente Jóia collective, made up of local residents and collaborators, the event reaffirms the community's leading role in the transformation of Parque da Jóia — a 13,000 m² space that, in the past, housed the former Jóia Favela and which, today, is a reference in urban reforestation, sustainable water management and permaculture practices.
The program includes two openings: the first is the Biomimetic Design Exhibition, which will present to the public prototypes developed by FAU-USP students based on solutions inspired by nature.
The second debut is the "Jewel of the Park" Route Game. Aimed at both regular visitors and school groups, it offers the public a playful and educational journey to learn about the history, regenerative initiatives, and biodiversity of the Jewel Park. This interactive experience invites the public to take on the role of regeneration detectives to unravel an ecological mystery. The goal of the route game is to raise environmental awareness by exploring the journey from destruction to restoration, demonstrating how community unity can transform degraded areas into beautiful, biodiverse places.
The festival will also feature three musical acts featuring community artists, a capoeira circle, and hands-on urban permaculture workshops, where the public will have the opportunity to see up close and understand how rain gardens work and compost the waste produced throughout the festival day. All activities are open to the public and free of charge.
Throughout the day, the Jóia Agroecological Fair will take place, featuring healthy food, handicrafts from local producers, and careful solid waste management, all geared toward a zero-waste festival. There will also be graffiti work in the park, with the Butantãnicas collective, made up of visual artists from Butantã who participate in graffiti campaigns throughout the neighborhood, coloring the walls and highlighting the work produced by women.
"The Jewelry Festival is more than an event; it's a celebration of a living, collectively constructed territory. By integrating it with the Biennial, we reinforce that Jewelry Park is also a space for reflection on the future of cities and inspiration for regenerative practices, contributing not only to the environment but also to the physical and mental health of the population," emphasizes the Gente Jóia collective.
The 4th Jewelry Festival is supported by the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism and the Department of Pathology of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo, the International Architecture Biennial of São Paulo and also with the support of the Urban Permaculturists network.
Free entry
More information: iInstagram.com/parquedajoia
The 4th Jewel Festival reaffirms Jewel Park as a living laboratory of sustainable practices and community strengthening, aligning art, design, permaculture and environmental education in a space that strives for recognition as a municipal urban park.
The festival was sponsored by the Pro-Rectorate of Culture and University Extension (PRCEU) of USP