# Frei Caneca competition project

**Frei Caneca competition project**

[![](../../images/2010/freicanecap.jpg)](../../images/2010/freicaneca.jpg)

This is our proposal for the Frei Caneca street reurbanization
competition in São Paulo. The project was made with
[Maíra,](http://maira.uncreated.net)[Sander and
Angelica](http://www.studiotroost.com). Given the extreme diversity of
people, uses and social contexts of the Frei Caneca, we choosed not to
make a project, which would dictate its rules over very different people
and situations, and would make the street "beg" for the project
execution to the authorities.
Instead, we designed a bottom-up system where everyone can propose, rate
and execute small "micro-projects". No masterplan, no fundraising, no
approval, no architect. If everybody does his part, wonderful. If only
one does, the street has already gained improvement.

You don't make a street work better because you change the pavement and
the trashbins... It has almost no importance at all. A street is made
of people who live there and people who use the street, and what makes a
street a nice street is the intricate relationship between all of them.
for who is interested in the subject, read the fantastic book of Jane
Jacobs, "[The Death and Life of Great American
Cities](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities)".
She said (in 1961) many, many things that apply perfectly to São Paulo
(and many other cities around the world)...

![](../../images/2010/freicaneca01p.jpg)

![](../../images/2010/freicaneca02p.jpg)

![](../../images/2010/freicaneca03p.jpg)

![](../../images/2010/freicaneca04p.jpg)