Sao Paulo Floods

Designing Reconciliation


2022 | Academic work
STU 1506: A Moratorium on New Construction
Instructor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes
Individual work

Rapidly built over a fluvial network, São Paulo floods several days a year, exposing vulnerable areas to unsanitary and dangerous conditions. Municipal efforts of flood mitigation focused on damming meandering waterways have failed. A moratorium on these hydro-engineering flood solutions is set to initiate the reconciliation between rivers and residents. With a legal status and ownership of public land, the river is granted the right to flood—without displacing the residents living on its banks. The project envisions a reconciled future between humans and water by de-chanelling the riverbed and re-naturalizing the margins, creating - thus - a flood resilient city.