Tag: São Paulo

a feminist kitchen? it’s all in the design

According to the Macmillan Dictionary, a kitchen is a room where you prepare and cook food, and wash dishes. The role and meaning of kitchens around the world is more varied and complex than this definition would have one believe, however. Ordering space through design is a key way in which diverse meanings are ascribed to nominally similar space. Design defines what a space is and isn’t, and who is…

25 images of transition in brazil

I spent two and a half months working alongside various initiatives that were part of a larger Transition Brasilândia network while in São Paulo, Brazil. Brasilândia is located in the North East of the city, and a 2 hour and multiple bus ride away from the centre of São Paulo. It is also the only Transition Initative located in a low-income neighbourhood. These 25 images exemplify some of the amazing…

environmental lessons

-Rosemary likes sunshine, so we planted it over there where it’ll get lots of it- Interwoven with observations about where the sun rises and sets, -it rises on that side and sets on that other one- an explorations of smells: of soil, of compost, -compost contains dung from a cow or a horse- The fear from knowing that compost is horse’s faeces goes away when the neighbourhood gardener asks, -well…

an ode to brasilândia

What is Brasilândia? A many layered thing- literally.A mix of textures, colours, sounds, “lá tudo nublado, aqui tudo colorido” as my host sister put it, The day she took me on a walk Through her colourful neighbourhood.A slice of life all in one short street.Where the church and local pub vie for customers, And airspace- And the tousle keeps you up on a Saturday night-It’s a many flavoured thing: here…

design ingredients for sustainable waste management – ii

“So how should a city’s waste management options be designed? Labels such as those of UCT’s campus receptacles and Hoan Kiem Lake’s bins would communicate the importance of both recycling and reducing one’s waste. The placement of these ideal designed options would consider where disposer traffic was likely to be highest and what waste would be generated based on activities occurring. The ideal design would also be replicated through a…

design ingredients for sustainable waste management – i

“Urban areas concentrate not only economic and social production, but also waste production. Waste that is often addressed at the end of a long chain of actors- manufacturers, retailers, consumers, disposers, municipal councils, collectors, recyclers. And thus waste’s final destination and the impacts of the same are made invisible. The problem of what to do with waste is externalised by actors along the chain of waste production, an externalisation aided…