Together in the Jungle

The project addresses the enclosure of unbuilt land into conservation areas as a device that shapes a territory beyond its given environmental policies. It situates itself within the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where its enclosed mountains shape the city socially and politically like no other force. These have, on one hand, provided a green backdrop to the city and served as a juridical instrument capable of keeping developers from building on the land. They have also, on the other hand, served as a device for land appropriation that keeps a rhetoric of access through tourism but that ultimately creates the separation of dwelling, of experience. The project proposes a network of paths, stairs and terraces that enable access and use to the forested hillsides. The notion of “museification” (Agamben) is profanated by its very own rules, where the act of preserving is also the act of using.