SOBAS

Here in Brazil we're slowly moving into Autumn (still 25 C) and back home spring flowers should be popping up about now. I've only been here for a short time, and school has just started, everything put on hold during the carnival, but I must say exchange is recommended. Keep searching and you shall find. Experiencing something new makes everything clearer.

Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU) here at Universidade de São Paulo (USP) is many times the size of BAS - I think 130 new students every year. I'm the first Norwegian at the faculty and the only one at the moment that doesn't come from a Latin country (we've French, Spanish, Colombians, Argentinians...). Some students were astonished I'd come here without speaking much Portuguese, but as I told them; I speak architecture, or the sensual language of space. However, now even my Portuguese is coming along pretty good and it's rapidly getting better every day.

FAU has a similar body as BAS, being a big block of concrete (I refer to my blog for photos). The library however is nothing like BAS, as it is really spacey and has much more books! The educational system here is also different. Even on master level students choose 3-6 subjects/projects each semester that they work on simultaneously, and every project has a time and day where it has lectures/discussions/teacher at the studios. I have chosen three subjects apart from my Portuguese classes. One is a course in basic autoCAD, one is a group project on urbanism that treats the centre of this megalopolis, the problem with poverty and lack of housing for this social class, and the third is an individual design project on making a public school in the poor neighbourhood of Perus. Brazil having so many social problems and FAU being quite Marxist, most courses treat social problems one way or the other. The professors are really good and possess a great deal of knowledge both on Brazil - economy and social issues - and in terms of the built space.

São Paulo is such a big city I have not seen most of it yet. With it's 11 million people (and 21 million in the metropolitan area) it expands a breathtaking 1,523 km2, at which every square meter is populated! You can find anything here, it's like the entire world in one big city. Any kind of product, any kind of nationality (São Paulo is the city outside of Japan that has the most Japanese), any kind of colour (great for me, because I could actually be native here) and any kind of religion (from shamanistic, voodoo to aggressive evangelicals and Hare Krishnas). And for those who didn't know (I didn't) Brazilians are really extremely friendly and helpful.

Together with Siv and Cesar, the exchange coordinator here at FAU, we are working on a mutual exchange agreement between these two schools, which will make it easier to do exchange here or at BAS, and not having to go through the paper mill I was exposed to. Settling in Brazil is enough paper work as it is - I've honestly never experienced a more complicated bureaucracy in my life! However, it seams to be worth while.

I have created a blog where I post thoughts and share pictures, and you are all very welcome to visit it - and I hope you wish to follow it! It gives great pleasure writing down and formulating my thoughts and I recommend it to you all. As been discussed frequently at BAS we as architects should write more and participate more.


The blog: http://sixmonthssanpaulo.blogspot.com/

The chick: Birgitte, 4th year student at BAS :)

 

These pictures are from a visit in the center of town where the course on urbanism is taking place. The picture above shows some of my fellow students and two of our teachers. The one with the cap is João Sette Witaker, the main teacher of the course.

 

The whole city is a patchwork of buildings of all different styles.

João Sette is always very enthousiastic when he talks about the issues of São Paulo.