Calafate Urban Requalification
Coordination: Beatriz Duarte, Andrezza Martins e João Pedro Lacerda
2017
spatial practices; urban planning
Calafate Urban Requalification is a project that engages with the fragmented urban condition at the intersection of the Calafate, Prado, and Padre Eustáquio neighborhoods in Belo Horizonte, Brasil. Shaped by large-scale mobility infrastructures and natural constraints, the area operates as a discontinuous urban fabric, where connections are interrupted and spaces remain underused.
Rather than treating this condition as a deficit, the project approaches it as a field of potential. It investigates how infrastructural systems not only divide but can also be rethought as agents of connection and spatial transformation.
The proposal explores the reconfiguration of these infrastructural voids, transforming them into accessible and continuous urban spaces. By reconnecting adjacent neighborhoods and reactivating residual areas, the project seeks to reposition infrastructure as a mediator of urban life, enabling new forms of use, circulation, and collective experience.