Boosting sustainability and urban quality in Rio de Janeiro. Porto Maravilha as catalyzer of the urban transformation environmental oriented. Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Rio de Janeiro, is one of the biggest world’s agglomeration with more than 12 millions inhabitants. The port area of the city of Rio de Janeiro has become greatly degraded, to the detriment of the population that lives and works there. The reduction in port activities dried up the economy and the construction of the Perimetral Highway converted the area into a passageway. Over the last decades, it has been placed on the back burner, despite its strategic location and immense historical and cultural value, which were recognized with the creation, in 1987, of the Cultural Environment Protection Area for the Saúde, Gamboa and Santo Cristo Neighborhoods (Portuguese acronym: APA SAGAS). In recent decades, cities around the world have awakened to the new paradigm of sustainable development, where the new frontier is the occupation of vacant spaces. Within this context, the reuse of old industrial and port areas is taking on new purposes for cities. The regeneration of these spaces, with intensification and blending of their uses, can produce sustainable urban spaces that boost quality of life. In 2013 IMM design lab with Urban Engineering Program of Escola Politécnica, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) started a join research program to transform the Porto Maravilha area in a new sustainable, efficient, liveable and environmental oriented neighborhood. The research wishes demonstrate how the transformation of an intermediate scale could play role of a catalyst to initiate a chain reaction, able to transforms the entire structure of the city seen as a CAS.