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Architizer’s A+Awards celebrates great design in every context, and many of the most popular projects are those that engender a positive public impact in the most challenging of socioeconomic settings.
When designing a new network of bus stops for Belo Horizonte, Brazil, local firm Gustavo Penna Arquiteto and Associados was faced with a broad range of hurdles, from major budgetary constraints to civil unrest over perceived governmental mismanagement of the impending World Cup in 2014. In response, they produced an innovative modular system for public transportation that won the public vote in last year’s A+Awards. Here, project architect Oded Stahl talks us through the trials and triumphs of this fascinating project.
Architizer: Can you tell us a little about Gustavo Penna’s background?
Oded Stahl: Gustavo opened his office in 1974; he’s been doing architecture here in Minas Gerais for 40 years now. He is very connected to the state of Minas Gerais, which is the kind of “working muscle” of Brazil. It possesses a mountainous landscape and lots of minerals, and part of this is very evident in his architecture, with the shapes, the materials and the use of colors.
© Jomar Braganca
On your website, you say that “architecture is key to shaping the identity of a country.” Does your firm aim to stay true to the original culture of Brazil, create new ideas for the country or perhaps a combination of both?
Brazil has a relatively new culture; it is still being shaped, trying very much to get away from its Portuguese heritage, or at least trying to develop something that is unique and local. We believe that architecture plays a very big part in doing that, and in our projects, we try to connect to the people, their culture and the place. We try to direct and help in creating this new identity, a new entity.
For the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) Stations, your firm expressed a desire to avoid visual stimuli. Can you tell us more about that?
Our streets are already very visually polluted. There’s lots of traffic, lots of cars and buses, lots of people and other objects along the sidewalk. So we thought, let’s try to blend — What would be the best way to blend in? We came up with a concept of “just another bus”: we tried to design these stops to appear as one more bus in the landscape, not introducing new elements, but using ones that already exist. That was the departure point for this project.
© Jomar Braganca
Can you elaborate on the process involved in the creation of your modular design and how the BRT system could be expanded in the future?
This project was about introducing a new public transportation system, which — until now — has been associated with utilitarian design, for people that have no money to buy a car. Instead, we wanted to create a modern feel, something more desirable. So we went for an advanced construction method called precasting. This is still very uncommon in Brazil, but it serves this goal of making something modern, sleek and desirable and also helps reduce costs because it can be repeated.
In the end, we had to compromise, with some parts being prefabricated and some manually made and constructed on-site; the cost of manual labor in Brazil is so low, we couldn’t compete with it. However, this is just the beginning, and, for us, it was a kind of an adventure because we had never done projects involving prefabrication with these kinds of materials and geometry. This is an experience that we definitely want to take with us to the future, and I think we also managed to introduce the potential of it to our client, the city municipality.
What was the greatest challenge you faced during the delivery of the project in Belo Horizonte?
The main challenge was definitely economical: the client was the city municipality, so the budget was very limited. We tried to strip the project back, removing any unnecessary element to try to produce a really minimal, functional form. We used local materials and labor, which helped to cut the budget, as well. Another challenge was the actual construction on-site. Since it is a prototype to be repeated many times, we had to reach a design that is kind of mistake-proof, something that anybody will be able to duplicate and still keep [the] high quality of construction as we wanted. Therefore, we had to think of very simple and very efficient methods for designing, fabrication and construction.
Can you talk about your use of glass as a primary material for this project?
Yes, transparency was very important to us. We aimed to make the stations as open as possible because they are located in between two lanes of highway, and we wanted people to feel secure while they are there. It’s a place that’s very visible and light, controlled by the public. The glass helps with costs and sustainability because the station is naturally illuminated; it also has natural ventilation, through perforated metal sheets, so we don’t need any air conditioning or climate control.
Have you seen any change since these bus stations have been built, have there been more people using them?
They opened in June 2014, and, in the beginning, they suffered a little bit of criticism. It wasn’t about the stations themselves so much as about the system, because it changed the routes of the existing buses in the city. It was a big change for people in the beginning. It took some time, but now we can see that it definitely improved the service; it definitely shortened the times it takes people to travel. The buses themselves are of better quality, and 500,000 people are using them now per day, so it’s a very good result.
© Jomar Braganca
What does winning an A+Award mean to you?
We very much appreciate the prize. It serves as a kind of checkpoint to see where we stand in relation to what’s happening around the world, a great form of quality recognition. The A+Awards program is about being able to showcase our work and open discussions with people and markets in countries and cultures that we couldn’t reach otherwise. Maybe problems that we are struggling with here in Brazil, and that we are solving here in Brazil, are very relevant in other places, and through publications like Architizer, we might find a solution in a city across the world that is relevant for us.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Additional reporting by Paul Keskeys