Knitting capabilities and building possibilities | Reflecting about two SESC’s units installation...

Serena Muccitelli | Knitting capabilities and building possibilities Creative Adjacencies Conference | Ghent, June 03-06 2014

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ADU 2020 - European ALFA project Creative Adjacencies Conference

http://creativeadjacencies.com/about-2/ June 03-06 2014 Ghent • Belgium

Knitting capabilities and building possibilities Reflecting about two SESC’s units installation in São Paulo Track 6/ Community Buildings: blending in or contrasting scenarios?

Serena Muccitelli Dipartimento di Architettura, Univesità degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy

[email protected]

Abstract. Into the metropolitan space of São Paulo in Brazil, leisure spaces can be read as urban poles where citizenship relations are built, spaces that identify the city public domain. The institution of SESC-SP (Serviço Social do Comércio do Estado de São Paulo) stands out for the work it promotes to improve quality of life within the urban population. The paper discusses the installation process of two community buildings owned by SESC, and contextualizes these experiences within the current architectural and urban planning trends, that are questioning on the disciplinary practice processuality itself. The objective is to focus a process that aims at establishing liaisons with the surrounding community, learning about local audience and building partnership with local actors. Within the fifteen community buildings that SESC owns, the paper analyses two cases - SESC Belenzinho and SESC Santo Amaro – where the architectural construction has been anticipated by the opening of a provisional unit. The paper shows the challenges that have emerged during the processes in the two case studies, as learning occasions for design professions, and proposes to analyze how the knowledge produced along the process could be exploited in order to orient and improve the design and planning of the unit, in agreement with the emerging urban reality. Keywords. Collaborative process; cultural programming; SESC-São Paulo; leisure spaces; temporariness.

The involvement of SESC-SP’s leisure spaces in community development

The metropolis of São Paulo in Brazil is a dense and chaotic urban environment, in constant transformation. The transformation in most cases consists in the punctual replacement of parts of the city, hence the architectural design seems to be the only factor in charge of operating the transformations.

In such a fragmented and individualist context, leisure spaces become urban poles where the relationships between citizens and the city are built and strengthened. Indeed, leisure spaces can be seen as spaces that promote the city’s quality life; spaces with social and personal functions that identify the city public domain (Rolnik, 2000).

In São Paulo, the institution of SESC-SP stands out for the work it promotes in this sense, by managing an articulated network of leisure, sport and cultural equipment. SESC-SP (Serviço Social do Comércio do Estado de São Paulo) is a private,


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nationwide institution, established by the Brazilian federal law to improve quality of life within workers in the sectors of commerce, tourism and services. This institution is engaged in promoting access to culture, education of audience through cultural activities. Its resources come from a mandatory contribution equal to 1,5% of the payroll of the above-mentioned sectors’ companies.

SESC equipment are focused as important community buildings. The paper’s main theme, indeed, is developed around the case study of two units, SESC Belenzinho and SESC Santo Amaro, which have been installed between 1998 and 2011. The case studies were chosen because of their unique installation process, which consisted in anticipating the buildings construction with the opening of provisional units (p.u.), realized by using and adapting the structures already available on the site of the future building [figure 1]. The objectives of this on-going process are establishing liaisons with the surrounding community, learning characteristics, needs, tastes of future audiences, and creating partnerships with local actors. The phase of activity of the p.u. is dense of uncertainties, and therefore is the most exploratory and full of interesting implications of the whole process.

Figure 1 SESC Santo Amaro provisional unit, 1999, picture from SESC-SP archive

SESC practice will be analyzed and decoded along the paper, in order to show the

challenges that have emerged during the processes, as learning occasions for ADU professional field. Indeed, the involved actors and the expertise exchanges occurred, show that city space transformation activates issues related to citizenship development, which are not considered by traditional planning methods. Moreover, the processes show that the figures involved in the spatial transformation, are more and more committed with urban issues, with the aim of understanding social dynamics and conceive change in a processual way.

The paper claims that the above mentioned processes, are informal experiences of collaborative design methods. Here, the functional units’ features have been developed in an incremental and interactive way, by prototyping the project idea and by


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gradually realigning it. However we already point out that the case studies show some gaps and an unsatisfactory closure, when focusing on the refining of the project in conformity to the intermediate results. However we believe that the studied cases contain interesting responses to the metropolitan urban challenges, and that they are rich learning occasions for urban design in a global perspective.

Finally the analyze suggests how the knowledge produced along the collaborative process could be exploited, in order to orient and improve the design and planning practice, in agreement with the emerging urban reality. For this purpose the paper points out:

• the actors and competences involved (social researchers, architects, cultural programmers, local cultural producers, audience);

• the intermediate testing results; • the turning points in which to exploit and to strengthen the intermediate results

receipt.

Tools for the analysis

The process of the units’ installation begins with the purchase of the plot on which those will be built. Right after the purchase, SESC opens the provisional unit, offering a quality cultural program and a range of services capable of supplying the urgency of the metropolitan population’s needs. This happens in conformity to the Brazilian reality, where, according to Njenhuis e De Veris (2000) the municipalities’ actions is always anticipated by the occurrences; where there is no time for considerations and reflections, because no one can anything against the proliferation of the city1. The duration of the provisional unit activities depends on the time required to define the definitive unit design and to start the construction. The process has been broken into three phases [figure 2], in order to structure the case study. The phases - provisional unit, construction site, definitive unit - correspond to what happens in the site and reveal the concrete possibility of testing SESC social and spatial project on site. The phases, which implement a practice-based-research methodology, can also be read as a cycle of: “discovery and experimentation”, “development” and “implementation and delivery”.

Figure 2 Installation process In second place, three action tracks have been identified, in order to interpret the strategies of the actors involved in the process: the architectural-design-track, the activity-planning-track and the interaction with the audience track. In both case studies the core team is composed by the p.u. administrations and by their team of specialists and cultural planners, while the decision-makers team corresponds to the 1 in: PINTO, A.L.: (2008) Urbanismo na fragmentação. A resposta do Bairro-escola, PTK Livros, Rio de Janeiro.


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central administration of SESC-SP. The two groups are flanked by local stakeholders and experts (artists and researchers) that, together with the core team, will mobilize design energies and will question the impact and purpose of the new community building in relation to the local social potentials and to the inhabitants needs. In both cases, the design track follows a procedure that doesn’t interact with the p.u., and which is completely internal to the SESC offices in charge of choosing the project and following the construction (Diretor Regional, ATP, Assessoria da Engenheria). On the contrary, the activity-planning track is the dynamic catalyst of the field research, as SESC team enters the field with some minimum targets and opens possibilities for the creation of new configurations. In SESC Belenzinho case, the creativity expressed within the former factory will disclose a new way of living, transforming and using the space of the city, as a collective expression. In SESC Santo Amaro case, the knowledge of a peripheral context will produce a new reading of the city, and will lead to new scenarios for SESC work and for the creation of active citizenship. Phase 3 can be interpreted as the process validation, because it relates about what has been done, learned and implemented, in consideration of the intermediate results’ reception and the definitive units outcomes.

Cultural mediation in SESC Belenzinho for glocal relations establishment

The SESC Belenzinho experience raises interesting implications related to the size of the urban transformation and to the extent of the urban dynamics it triggers.

While the area is part of São Paulo central districts (Subprefeitura Mooca, District Belem), it lies on the border of the extended east area of the city (Zona Leste). The east zone currently corresponds to one of the two metropolis expansion vectors and is an area lacking of social and educational infrastructures and densely inhabited by a low income population. The area development is associated with the economic history of São Paulo, and with the sudden transformations that, between the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX century turned São Paulo into a big industrial metropolis. The installation of two railway lines that connected São Paulo with the harbor of Santos and with the city of Rio de Janeiro, was crucial for the development of the area. Indeed it attracted many textile factories and the immigrant labor force that today characterizes the socio-economic profile of the neighborhood. At the end of the last century the area was invested by the post-industrial dynamics that, according to Meyer (2004), characterizes São Paulo metropolization process. The presence of tertiary activities got consolidated in the area, the industries closed their activities and the workers moved to neighborhoods where they could find a job. Therefore in the area has remained an aged population and a high number of abandoned residential and industrial buildings, that contributed to the general degradation of the area. The district urban structure got, then, marked by further infrastructural interventions that weakened the inhabitants’ relations with the urban space and characterizes the area as a region of transit.

This is the scenario where SESC inserts itself in 1997, when buying the former Moinho Santista factory, and in 1998, by re-opening the factory, adapted as the SESC Belenzinho provisional unit. As previously mentioned, building a community center means, for SESC, establishing durable relationships with the inhabitants of the surroundings, encouraging their identification with the unit and vice versa. The first action taken in this direction consisted in conducting a series of interviews and exploration visits throughout the neighborhood, with the photographer Gal Oppido. The photos were then exhibited into the former factory’s window frames, to establish a bond of identity between the space and the people who could recognize themselves in the photos, and then, in the space that wore their faces. The two levels on which


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SESC works are embedded in this operation: a neighborhood one, which aims at establishing a personal relationship with the community, and a metropolitan one, that aims at establishing broader relationship within the city, loaded of cultural and educational messages. It is relevant that its action is characterized by the use of the artistic medium as a mediator able of qualifying the relationship between the local and the global: "the aim is not to involve a global general level, but to build a qualified relationship between local and global "(Danilo Miranda)2. This statement reveals the second ambitious goal sought by the opening of a SESC’s unit: activate cultural routes to engage the local community and the wider cultural community of the city. For both levels of interaction and communication SESC’s strategy is aimed at stimulating an identity overlap: the community’s one with the space, the audience’s one with cultural content and the SESC’s one with the city.

Figure 3 Installation process of SESC Belenzinho Unit

The main institutional actors of the process are the Regional Director of SESC and the manager Elisa Santive. The first has the role to indicate the guidelines of SESC’s action and to approve the single units programming. Its goal is to expand the network of SESC’s centers, reaching as much audience as possible. The manager Elisa, who animated and implemented the programming of the SESC Belenzinho throughout Phase 1, emerges as the protagonist of its success.

We can distinguish the public in two types of actors: the local community and the metropolitan audience. The stakes of the first group are the possibility to recognize itself in a place that belongs to him and in a program that constitutes for it a service. The objective of metropolitan audience, less rooted in the territory, more mobile and changeable, is the use of the services and the consumption of the cultural content offered by SESC. This second group represents a wider audience, from the point of view of territorial origin, and a more selective one.

Before analyzing the third group of actors and their capabilities, we want to point out the element that really characterized the provisional unit of SESC Belenzinho: the former Santista factory. We believe that the manager has, first of all, had the perspicacity to take advantage of the temporary space’s adaptability, and to engage the artists who intervened in the programming in doing the same. The old industrial 2 Reference is made to the interview held by the writer to the Regional Director of SESC-SP Danilo Miranda the 4-12-013 in São Paulo

1998 2006 2011

ACTI

ON

TRA

CKS

PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

EXPERIMENTATION DEVELOPMENT IMPLEMENTATION

ACTORS- Diretor SESC-SP: Danilo Miranda- Ricardo Chain arquitetos- Assessoria Tecnica de Planejamento (ATP)- Assessoria de Engenharia

- Danilo Miranda- Ricardo Chain arq.- ATP- Ass. Engenharia

OPENING PROVISIONAL UNIT CONSTRUCTION DEFINITIVE UNIT

DESIGN

- SESC Belenzinho Administration (Elisa Santive)- SESC Belenzinho Cultural Planning Staff- Artists (photographers, directors, ...)

- New Administration- New Cultural Planning Staff- SESC Central Administration

ACTIVITY PLANNING

- Local community- Cultural audience- Artistic community

- Local community- East zone audience- Cultural audience

INTERAC-TION

Demonstrators against the unit closure


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buildings turned into the scene of an intense dialogue between art, architecture and cities, whose aim was to discuss proceedings, issues of scale, repertoires and practices of architecture, that by becoming standardized, have lost dynamics and processuality. Art installations occupied the spaces of the former factory, by offering, for example, an experience of space-time suspension, or an experience of awareness about of the fragmentation of the metropolis (Projeto: http://vimeo.com/4766301 artecidadezonaleste: march 2014) [Figure 4]. Thus, artists, scenographers and directors, found in the alternative, undefined and adapted spaces of the former factory new challenges for their creativity and new opportunities for experimentation. Such artistic practices offered a great contribution to the revitalization of the SESC Belenzinho. The element that characterized the provisional Belenzinho was, therefore, its capability to create intersections between the space of the possible and the everyday life, revealing the greater lesson of this experience (Elisa Santive, 2011). The paper identifies two main outcomes in this phase. The first deals with the low-definition space of the former factory, which generated learning occasions for those involved in the programming, and unforeseen appropriation scenarios for the audience. We believe that this could happen because a low-definition-space is perceivable as a space of possibilities, freedom and creativity, which are some of the qualities that a space should embed to be collective and, basically, public. The second interesting element concerns the involvement of artistic capacities in the process of production of the space. The artists’ gaze first decomposed the space into its essential elements, and secondly charged it with a system of shared meanings, in a process that triggered the Belenzinho appropriation and the requalification of the surroundings.

SESC Belenzinho closes in 2006, in order to proceed with the construction of the new unit. This event has been followed by numerous demonstrations against the interruption of the activities, that evidenced the re-appropriation of this place as a location for gathering, cultural enjoyment, and sports.

According to Danilo Miranda: “We made a good job in Belenzinho and we did pay the price of our efficiency. But the space wasn’t well exploited: it was necessary to think about the safety of people, flows, accessibility, improve the dental clinic and create a new center, where we could attend many more

Figure 4 Uma vista, Cassio Vasconcelos, in artecidadezonaleste

Figure 5 SESC Belenzinho, provisional unit - exterior

Figure 6 SESC Belenzinho, adaptation of the former factory


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people."3 These, therefore, are the goals of the new unit: to be the largest equipment within the units of São Paulo, in order to attend the massive population of the east area and to be comparable to SESC Pompeia (the most representative unit, designed by architect Lina Bo Bardi in 1982) for significance and dynamism.

The design of the final unit, by the architect Ricardo Chain [Figure 7], demolished the existing buildings and built the entire complex with a slight stylistic reference to contemporary industrial buildings. The new buildings are concentrated on the backward side of the plot and leave a wide, open space in front of the entrance. Upon entering the complex, the first element encountered is a large staircase leading to a courtyard, which overlooks the central space that houses the restaurant and the gathering area, the tennis courts, the path that leads to the services block and the outdoor pool. The new unit was opened in december 2010. It has a built area of 50,000 square meters (the plot area is about 32,000 sqm) and a rich proposal of spaces. The complex is configured as a sports and entertainment venue, with swimming pools (indoor and outdoor pool for children and adults), an inner courtyard, theatres, dining area, space for training courses, cultural workshops, sports and leisure activities for people of all ages and interests.

Figure 7 SESC Belenzinho, new unit, design by Ricardo Chain, picture from SESC-SP archive

The unit of Belenzinho is, to date, the largest unit of the Great São Paulo, with 420 people employed on the staff. Its gear audience in 2012 was of 1,600,000 people, and its user base of 135.951 people (which is above the average of 66,760 people) (data from: Setor Estatistica do SESC SP). These data confirm that the opening of the final Belenzinho has achieved the original objectives of the institution: offering a large number of new high-quality services to the Zona-Leste’s audience and to the enlarged public of the city.

In brief, it is possible to state that SESC Belenzinho, since its opening, has mobilized a local audience, that uses the space as a community center. At the same time Belenzinho has involved a wider audience, whose moves are based on the offer 3 Ibidem


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of spaces and cultural activities such as concerts, dance performances, theatre performances or exhibitions.

The action track and interaction with the audience track interrupted during phase 2, and resumed in phase 3, when the programming started again in the new spaces, with a renewed administration and following the guidelines fixed by SESC central administration. Similarly, the dynamics of the audience, once the connection has been established, appear simplified. What remains now is a strong emphasis on the dialogue with the inhabitants and the local community. According to Olegario Neto Machado "the people shouldn’t think that SESC is a good thing but it offers what it is interested in offering; they must think that SESC wants to have the community itself as a player in the production of culture that takes place in its spaces”.4

The SESC Belenzinho’s case study has its major weakness point in the missed interaction of the architectural design with the events that, during phase 1, were building a new space and new relationships. The realized building, today appears far from what was shaping the provisional spaces of the former factory.

Although the new complex is described as a fluid space, integrated with the urban space, where an external square and an internal one constitute the lively core of the neighborhood, it appears as a space whose integration is more functional than spatial. First of all, the whole plot is elevated of about ten steps from the street level, which means that it is not permeable to the view. Secondly, the new spaces are organized so that to allow a perfect functioning for the complex program they host. On the other hand, the spaces’ organization avoids fluxes’ overlapping and fortuitous mix, which would create occasions of active engagement of the audience, and enrich the whole environment.

To conclude, compared to the effervescent environment and results that have been produced in the first phase, in the scenario of a low-definition-space, SESC Belenzinho today seems to have missed an opportunity and a lesson.

SESC Santo Amaro: experimenting a network of culture and sociability in the South Zone

The process of interaction with the local community of SESC Santo Amaro has been characterized by different dynamics from the SESC Belenzinho ones, that will involve the “informal” culture of the whole South area of São Paulo. The unit is, indeed, localized in the Subprefetura of Santo Amaro, that appears as the last border of the expanded center (centro expandido), before the limitless zona-sul (from the reading of the socio-economic maps of SP municipality). The area is characterized by an important history of struggle for political and administrative autonomy, in relation to the time when the region was an independent municipality. Today this imagery is still alive among the inhabitants of the area, and, at the cultural level, it is explicated by the lively local culture.

The zona-sul corresponds to the second of the metropolis’ expansion vectors, and it is known as the southern periphery, dense of urban precariousness and social vulnerability. At a closer look, the area appears as a mosaic of the richness and of the contradictions of the city of São Paulo: in spite of the fragile relations with the public power, its intense cultural life reflects the power of artistic creativity in the local communities’ lives. Another important local characteristic is the strong presence of associations and collectives that form, transform and question their role of socio- 4 Reference is made to the interview held by the writer to Olegario Neto Machado, in the role of consultor tecnico da Administração Central, the 28-11-013 in São Paulo


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cultural agents, starting from needs and possibilities experienced in their everyday social relationships (SESC, 2010).

Entering this particular environment, SESC and his team have been challenged to understand what kind of cultural proposal they could make to a very diversified audience, which normally does not identify itself with its programming (Do Val, 20135). This is significant considering that the population that belongs to the region of Santo Amaro normally frequents the unit of Vila Mariana, which is close to Santo Amaro, more central and consolidated.

The provisional unit was opened in 1998, in the spot where the definitive unit was to be realized, a small plot by 60x100 meters [Figure 1]. The structures of the former bus warehouse were adapted to accommodate multi-functional rooms, a theater, a playground, a dining area and some sports fields, while in the central area a circular marquee was realized for larger events. The SESC will announce his arrival in the neighborhood with the big event "Mundão," that in ten days and 120 hours of simultaneous shows, concerts and performances gathered 1500 artists. In 2004, the unit was closed in order to start the construction works of the new one, and the provisional unit was relocated to a rented house, at short distance. Since the opening of the p.u., the administration of the SESC Santo Amaro discussed new possibilities of action and tested new methodologies able to involve a higher number of actors, driven by the particular context in which it was going to be inserted, by the low availability of spaces, and by the desire to extend the range of activities. The proposals converged in the action plan called "Cultural Mutirão"6 were characterized by an external articulated action, in the will to strengthen the ties with institutions and culture points of the surroundings. In particular, the manager at the time, Mariacelia Ramos Teixeira, asserts that the actions had been organized so as to involve public actors and civil society, which would have to bring new partners, in a chain process7. The actions of Mutirão Cultural were designed in order to trigger a process that could have kept breeding grounds of continuity, even when SESC would have gone out of it. Indeed, because of the uncertainty about the continuity of the work, related to the temporary nature of the administration and of the unit itself, SESC Santo Amaro didn’t want to create commitments of dependence in the partners. The proposals of this testing phase (Phase 1) concretized in a network of partnerships with formalized cultural practices, that existed around the unit. The network made possible to fulfill cultural exchange projects in public spaces or of other entities, which strengthened the institutional presence of the SESC in that territory.

In 2008, approaching the new unit's opening, the administration of the SESC Santo Amaro decided to formalize the work done in the previous nine years and to record the cultural realities encountered in a document, which will be mapping the "Santo Amaro em rede" (Santo Amaro in a network – Phase 2). To achieve that goal, they envolved the Instituto Polis (Brazilian research institution), which provided a team of researchers coordinated by Ana Paula Do Val, an experienced researcher in the affective and significance relations that are established between the cultural practices and the city. The specific skills of Ana Paula, architect and urban planner, professionalized as social researcher, are a good example of the importance of interdisciplinarity in the training of those engaged with the urban project. Very 5 Head of the research “Santo Amaro em Rede. Culturas de convivência”. Reference is made to the interview held by the writer the 6-12-013. 6 Mutirão is the term used in Brazil to identify collective mobilization for the achievement of a common purpose and based on mutual assistance. 7 Reference is made to the interview held by the write to the Gerente Adjunta of SESC Santo Amaro, Mariacelia Ramos Teixeira il 30-11-013 a São Paulo


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interestingly, during the construction of the research, Ana Paula also organized a series of meetings to sensitize the team of fifteen programmers of SESC Santo Amaro (Administration, program coordinators, cultural area technicians) to urban issues and to listening to the cultural voices of the territory, especially the informal ones.

The mapping opened an extremely experimental phase of collaborative work, where also the institution objectives’ definition happened in a processual way. The mapping work was thought so as to trigger a "snowball" process, by dispensing a questionnaire to the local cultural actors. Some young people belonging to the region, already in some way related to cultural movements, have been trained to carry out this work. The importance of this choice lies in the fact that these subjects became the research's spokesmen, and did lent their personal credibility to SESC, in order to open the doors of the community to the institution.

Figure 8 Installation process of SESC Santo Amaro Unit

"The tool of the questionnaire returned a sensitive reading of the local socio-

cultural dynamics, therefore a qualitative reflection on cultural production existing in the area, through identifying practices at the dominant culture’s margin, which often ends up by disqualifying them. In fact, the questionnaire had the purpose to bring out, map, disseminate and reinforce the practices that were already established in the territory. The qualitative/quantitative nature of the research, that now qualifies the cultural actions and gives space for local cultural memory, now quantifies and ranks the dynamics of the territory, allowed the consolidation of a live network of exchanges between the unity of SESC Santo Amaro and local cultural actors, strengthening the project proposal. "(Do Val, 2010)

The mapping of socio-cultural dynamics involved a large area of the south-zone, which overlooked the administrative boundaries, as the mapped practices had been indicated by other cultural groups, on the basis of social relations between them. The research identified 323 socio-cultural dynamics, 290 of which were recognizable in organized groups -collectives, associations, institutions, etc.- and 33 in individuals. Regarding the field of the cultural expression of the dynamics, the great part of them were artistic languages (41.8%), the 6.2% were into informal education, 10.2% into traditional languages, and formal education, sport, and others followed.

With regard to the cultural action implemented by SESC during the mapping phase, it is interesting that also the programming methodology has been open to a collaborative approach: SESC called the partner to which it proposed the idea of the

1998 2005 2011

ACTI

ON

TRA

CKS

PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

EXPERIMENTATION DEVELOPMENT / RESEARCH IMPLEMENTATION

ACTORS- Diretor SESC-SP: Danilo Miranda- Edson Elito arquitetos associados- Assessoria Tecnica de Planejamento- Assessoria de Engenharia

- Danilo Miranda- Edson Elito arq.- ATP- Ass. Engenharia

PROVISIONAL UNIT RELOCATION / CONSTRUCTION DEFINITIVE UNIT

DESIGN

- SESC Santo Amaro Administration - SESC S. Amaro Cultural Planning Staff- Local cultural actors- Local cultural partners

- SESC S. Amaro Administration - Instituto polis- Local researchers- Local cultural actors & partners

- New Administration- New Cultural Planning Staff- SESC Central Administration

ACTIVITY PLANNING

- Local community- South zone artistic community

- Local community- South zone artistic community

- Local community- East zone audience- Cultural audience

INTERAC-TION


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event, and then come out of the decision process. In this way the group was involved from the event conception and would continue independently.

The analysis reveals two intermediate results of the process, that appear to be fundamental steps in the process of establishing a relation with the city, understood as the support of artistic and cultural expressions. The first result relates the understanding that the SESC’s officials involved in the process, had about SESC cultural action, in relation to the territory: in other words they could redefine the rule of the institution in relation to a territory where a cultural production already exists. In this perspective, the research constituted the occasion, for the SESC, to understand that the territories own independent cultural dynamics and that the SESC is one of the producers of culture in the city: not the only one, nor the main one. More interestingly, this assumption indicates that SESC's role is even more important because it has the resources to enhance, promote and turn visible the cultural production that already exists in the city. According to Do Val, this awareness comes with more strength in relation to the peripheral dynamics, while the SESC has acquired its status mainly in the central areas, where it configures its role more as the “head” of the system, than as the “knot” of the net. The second result, as regards to programming, is that these technicians have learned how to enter into the proposal of the mapped cultural groups, to understand whether the proposal could adhere to the cultural addresses of SESC, and to incorporate the proposals without disqualify them. This process has its mirror in the reception of the public, who, by identifying itself with that cultural production, identifies itself also with SESC, its spaces, and the inclusive cultural and educational policy that it promotes.

The new unit was opened in 2011, and it counts 14.350 sqm of built area, over a plot area of 7.600 sqm. The design of the architect Edson Elito [Figure 9] offers a number of interconnected spaces that give the feeling of integration to any point of the building. From the library it is possible to see the pool, the entrance and the dining area, and from the multifunctional rooms, through a succession of glass walls and open spaces, it is possible to see the sports fields.

Figure 9 SESC Santo Amaro, definitive unit, picture from SESC-SP archive


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In relation to the cultural programming, the opening of new unit and the arrival of the new manager, marked the end of SESC Santo Amaro’s experimentations. The programming returned to the institutional standards, by being adherent to GEAC guidelines (Gerencia de Ação Cultural of the central administration). Indeed, this is the procedure followed by the new director, who argues that now all the financial resources are used inside the new building, where the availability of spaces has increased. Some forms of external actions still remain, but they are punctual actions based on financial collaborations or agreements for the use of the space.

After all, the current audience of SESC Santo Amaro is no longer the audience that had been involved during phase 1 and phase 2, which feels less engaged and attracted by the programming. As mentioned in the opening, the unit suffers because its closer audience frequents the Vila Mariana unity, for higher affinity or because it is closer to its working place. Therefore, during the weekend, when local users should attend the community center of Santo Amaro, it appears emptier than it should. Nevertheless, it is important to highlight that the unit has, now, been opened for two years, and its path of interaction with the audience can still take the tracks it put aside.

Conclusions

The two examined case studies de facto are cases of interrupted collaborative design, since the process ended up without collecting the feedback of the context and without refining the project according to the concrete needs. However, the evidences suggest that, in relation to the relevance of the aspects involved, they are useful case study in order to conceive a broad urban programming.

Among the challenges of the urban environment, faced by the two projects, there was the capability to deal with a socially stratified and diverse population. The cases show that a cultural and urban policy cannot be applied indifferently in any context, and that the knowledge of the local population is a prerequisite for achieving the objectives of the project.

A second important outcome is the opportunity to test the effects of the project in its social context, in order to understand the on-going trends of that territory. The analysis of the intermediate results showed, indeed, that the feedback of the process allowed to get a more realistic framework. These feedbacks would allow to stem the impasse of contemporary design, which is planning its impact on projections and data which are inevitably more static and partial than the reality.

Moreover, we argue that prototyping the project can produce interesting effects on the design of the space. The architectural design should learn from the empirical experiences how to make the space be flexible and convertible on the base of the evolution of the program it contains and of the context in which it is inserted.

In this perspective, the future architect have the task of learning from audience and context dynamics, understanding the need for expression of diverse audience, and preparing a flexible space that can evolve together with its cultural and social environment. In order to do this, we believe it is essential that the architect learn how to collaborate with diverse skills, to confront himself with the social research and, above all, it is increasingly important to involve students in design-by-research projects, characterized by the open type of methodology just illustrated.


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Knitting capabilities and building possibilities | Reflecting about two SESC’s units installation...

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