The Paranapiacaba redevelopment navigates the dense jungles and terrain to provide a central transportation hub fueled by local environmental conditions allowing an integration of community and access.
In the mid-nineteenth century, a British company laid a network of railway tracks over Brazil’s green mountains and founded a workers’ village, Paranapiacaba. After thriving for thirty years, automated machinery led Paranapiacaba’s population to disperse, leaving its buildings to be abandoned by all but a few. With the aid of local government agencies and communities, it was clear that the critical path to rejuvenating the village would rely on redeveloping the railway, both as a transportation system and a connecting corridor.
