Centro de Encontro Comunitário - 14ᵃ Bienal Internacional de Arquitetura de São Paulo

Project implementation: Chile
Project development: Chile

The action-research project "Errando se Aprende" (Errando se Aprende) is located in Reñaca Alto Sur (Viña del Mar, Chile), a region marked by housing insecurity, urban exclusion, and vulnerability to wildfires. The Huasco ravine, historically seen as a boundary, has great potential to become a corridor for community and ecological life. The climate crisis and the 2024 fires have heightened the urgency of rethinking this space, highlighting the need for infrastructure capable of protecting the population and ecosystem.

In this context, a collective masterplan was developed, built through participatory workshops, tours, and community observations. The strategy views the favela as an inter-neighborhood park, connecting villages through green infrastructure, community facilities, and fire protection corridors. More than simply designing spaces, the goal was to shift perspectives: understanding the encampment not just as an informal settlement, but as a territory with a right to the city and a sustainable future.

Based on this, a Community Meeting Center was proposed at a strategic location in the favela. The building connects the inter-neighborhood park to everyday spaces—a cafeteria, playroom, and offices. It's not a standalone facility, but the embodiment of the masterplan as a space for gathering, cohesion, and mutual care, capable of strengthening community networks.

The project also introduces a new type of water reservoirs, designed as a prototype for community infrastructure. They serve a dual purpose: storing gray water for daily use and forming a fire protection network in areas where fire is a constant threat. This creates a new field of basic infrastructure for camps, combining safety, sustainability, and community care.

The choice of masonry responds to technical and social criteria. In a territory with difficult access and high exposure to fire, brick ensures resistance, permanence, and community ownership through self-management in construction. Materiality is also a pedagogical resource for learning and collective rooting.

The project demonstrates that architecture, beyond shelter, can activate processes of resilience and territorial justice. The favela, historically neglected, becomes the hub of a situated urbanism that connects nature, community, and the city. Even in contexts of extreme precariousness, it is possible to design infrastructures that are not palliatives, but triggers for social and environmental transformation.

More than an academic exercise, this is a research-action process that connects urban and architectural scales, moving from a collective masterplan to concrete community infrastructure. This process reveals the project's purpose: not to impose external design, but to collectively construct responses that combine heritage memory, shared care, and new ways of living in times of climate crisis.

Participate in the program of debates, workshops and associated activities!

TODAY (10.10)

2:30 pm – table Risk-Free Periphery in the Context of Climate Change

4pm – table Knowing to Transform: Community Climate Risk Reduction and Adaptation Plans

6:30 pm – table Inclusive Adaptation: Nature-Based Solutions in the Peripheries

9am – Drawing Workshop: Oscar Niemeyer's Architecture in Ibirapuera Park and the Climate Challenge

IN THE NEXT DAYS (11 to 14.10)

ATTENTION the table Palmas: For 36 years, the ecological capital of Tocantins which would be held on 10/11 | 7pm was canceled.

11.10 and 12.10 | 9am – workshop Inventa(rio) Fronteiras: Playing for Multispecies Cities

11.10 | 10am – workshop Elémenterre teaching bag

11.10 | 11am – table Learning to inhabit the Anthropocene: the crisis of architecture

11.10 | 2pm – table Architecture for Learning and Civic Use

11.10 | 3pm – table Culture and Public Architecture

11.10 – 15h – workshop Elémenterre teaching bag

11.10 | 4pm – table Reconnecting with Nature & Circular Design

11.10 | 5pm – table Architecture of Belonging: Interpreting Heritage Through Place

12.10 | 10am – table Experience: Climate Refuges and Naturalized Public Spaces, with Eco-Neighborhood

12.10 | 10:30 am – table Childhoods and Climate: Climate Justice in Vulnerable Territories

12.10 | 10:30 am – Windsock Workshop with the Floating Collective

12.10 | 3pm – table Doing a lot with a little: architectures for a planet in transition with Esteban Benavides from Al Borde office

12.10 | 4:30 pm – table Earth – building a sustainable and democratic future

12.10 | 5:45 pm – table French presence at the Biennale and screening of the film AJAP – Albums of Young Architects and Landscape Architects

13.10 – activity Pantanal Action at IABsp

10/14 | 10am – table Urgent Panorama! Space as an act of permanence

14.10 | 6pm – Launch of the “Nature-Based Education” Guide

JOIN! IT'S ALL FREE!

And there's much more until October 19th!

NOTE OF CONDOLENCE

With deep sorrow, the Brazilian Institute of Architects – São Paulo Department (IABsp) mourns the passing of architect and landscape architect Kongjian Yu, a global leader in ecological urbanism, and the members of his team who accompanied him, tragically killed during the filming of a documentary. The institute is honored to have had him as a participant in the 14th São Paulo International Architecture Biennial, where his transformative vision strengthened the dialogue between global challenges and local realities. IABsp emphasizes that Yu's contribution, which transcends borders, will remain an inspiration for generations and expresses its condolences to China, to the families of all the deceased, to his friends, and to all those impacted by his genius and dedication. Read the full note here.

Community Meeting Center

School of Architecture and Design Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso