Process Inclusivity. The Favela-Bairro Program in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

The economical changes of contemporary society find a macroscopic expression in their urban dimension: the urbanization of a large part of global population is progressively turning the world into a “world of cities”. Especially in the south of the world, the traditional rural society is changing into an industrial and urbanized one, where farmers having no land and work move to metropolitan areas causing an abnormal growth of urban areas. Baraccopoli, gecekondu, cité, villa miseria, chabola, favela, bidonville, shantytown: these are the terms which, in different languages, indicate the boundless slums where one sixth of global population is estimated to live in. Slums are characterized by lacks in the essential services, difficulties in controlling micro and macro-criminality, uncontrolled increases of pollution. Such a huge demand for dwellings, and its generalized answer in terms of self-construction - out of any kind of planning – have been assuming global dimensions. The inclusivity of the processes of upgrading and maintenance of slums created through self-construction activities can be considered as a real strategy aiming at pursuing urban quality: without it, it would be impossible to implement both the transformation and development and the education to legality of all those areas socially and economically emarginated. The present contribution describes the experience of the “Favela-Bairro” programm, studied within the relationships established between the Pescara Faculty of Architecture (Italy) and the Porto Faculty of Architecture (Portugal).