Jardim Colombo is part of the Complexo Parais\u00f3polis<\/a>, a group of urban settlements in the south of S\u00e3o Paulo, immediately alongside Morumbi, an area associated with high-income housing. The proximity of these two very different urban landscapes makes one of S\u00e3o Paulo’s most visible forms of spatial inequality particularly apparent: dense, self-produced neighbourhoods exist alongside areas of some of the city’s highest property values. The complex comprises Parais\u00f3polis, Jardim Colombo and Porto Seguro and occupies an area shaped by steep terrain, dense construction and a long history of incomplete urban infrastructure.<\/p>\n According to the Fazendinhando Institute, Jardim Colombo is home to approximately 18,000 people within an area of 14.9 hectares<\/a>. That corresponds to roughly 1,208 residents per hectare. For comparison, Tower Hamlets, the most densely populated local authority in London, had 15,695 residents per square kilometre in the 2021 Census<\/a>, equivalent to approximately 157 residents per hectare. On these figures, Jardim Colombo’s population density is about 7.7 times higher.<\/p>\n The physical form of the neighbourhood is closely connected to the way many of its buildings have been produced. Favelas and urban communities in Brazil have often developed through forms of self-produced construction, in which residents build, extend and adapt their homes according to available resources and changing spatial needs. The IBGE’s studies of Brazilian favelas and urban communities<\/a> document the relationship between these territories and characteristics such as dense construction, limited infrastructure and self-produced buildings.<\/p>\n In Jardim Colombo, this process can be seen in the houses themselves. Buildings have often been modified over time, with new rooms added, layouts changed and infrastructure adapted as families’ needs and financial circumstances changed. The result is a dense built environment in which individual houses can have complex relationships with neighbouring structures, streets and passageways.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jardim Colombo | Fazendinhando<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n This is the context in which Fazendinhando emerged. The organisation was founded by architect and urbanist Ester Carro, but Ester describes its formation as a collective process involving people both from within and outside the community. Its first project began at Fazendinha, and its work later expanded into housing, professional training and other community-based projects. Today, its interventions operate across different scales, from individual homes and structural repairs to public spaces. The institute says that more than 580 environments have been renovated through Fazendolar.<\/p>\n Fazendinhando’s work has also received recognition from the architecture, design and social-impact fields. The institute was awarded by IAB-SP in 2021<\/a> for its work in community action and citizenship in Jardim Colombo, and in 2025 Fazendinhando and Ester Carro won the Socioenvironmental Project category at the Elle Deco Brasil Design Awards. Ester has also been recognised individually, including through Forbes’ Under 30 selection.<\/a><\/p>\n Ester’s connection to this work, however, began long before Fazendinhando. She was born and raised in Jardim Colombo, where construction was part of her family life and the gradual transformation of the neighbourhood was part of her everyday experience.<\/p>\n An Architecture Shaped by Place<\/strong><\/p>\n Ester’s parents came from families with very limited financial resources. Her grandmother was the first to move to Jardim Colombo, looking for new opportunities, and later Ester’s parents moved there as well. They initially lived in a small wooden shack before her grandmother gave them part of her backyard so they could build their own home. Her father and maternal grandfather both had experience in construction, but the family did not have enough money to finish the house.<\/p>\n It remained, as Ester describes it, \u201calways an unfinished construction site.\u201d Because of its proximity to a former dumping area and its unfinished construction, the house was also vulnerable to rats and other problems. Ester remembers being afraid to sleep at night because rats could enter through the walls.<\/p>\n Her relationship with architecture developed alongside this experience. Her parents were involved in social projects, and Ester says that she had always wanted to give something back to her territory, regardless of the profession she eventually chose. She initially wanted to become a teacher. It was a friend from Jardim Colombo who suggested architecture.<\/p>\n At first, she could not see the connection.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does architecture have to do with me?\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n She had not encountered architects from peripheral communities working with social questions and did not initially understand architecture as a tool for social change. That began to change when she researched the profession during high school and completed a short internship in Parais\u00f3polis, where she encountered housing, sanitation and urban infrastructure from a different perspective. By the time she presented her school project, her decision had become clear. She remembers saying that she wanted to study architecture and urbanism \u201cbecause I wanted to change my community.\u201d She entered architecture school already knowing that she wanted to work with social issues and to see change taking place through architecture.<\/p>\n During university, however, she found few references for the kind of practice she was beginning to imagine. The projects discussed in class mainly approached the city at an urban-planning scale, while direct work within favelas appeared to depend largely on public-sector involvement.<\/p>\n One of Ester’s architectural references is the work of Francis K\u00e9r\u00e9<\/a> in Burkina Faso. His projects, including the Gando Primary School, combine local materials, environmental strategies and community participation, approaches that resonated with Ester’s own understanding of architecture. For her, however, the motivation behind Fazendinhando was also deeply personal: \u201cI wanted to see the transformation, my transformation, the transformation of my family,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n From Fazendinha to a Public Park<\/strong><\/p>\n Fazendinhando’s first project emerged from the former dumping ground known as Fazendinha, meaning \u201clittle farm\u201d in Portuguese. Ester explains that the name comes from the site’s earlier history: before it became a dumping area, there had been cows, chickens and crops there, and a local resident known as Seu Chico cared for the land.<\/p>\n Transforming the site was not simple. Ester recalls that the waste reached around 18 metres in height. Between 2017 and 2019, more than 80 community clean-up efforts were organised, and more than 300 truckloads of waste were removed<\/a>. Because access was through a narrow passageway, much of the material had to be carried out by hand.<\/p>\n The objective was not simply to remove the waste, but to transform the site into a community space. Ester describes the process as one based on participatory work and active listening, with residents involved in determining what the space could become. At first, however, community participation was limited. The team found that cultural activities, educational programmes, sports, recreation and festivals helped create a stronger connection between residents and the project.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fazendinha Park project | Fazendinhando<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n Der landscape design for Fazendinha Park<\/a> was developed from the wishes and ideas expressed by residents. The project therefore grew not only from a physical site, but from a process of asking what the community wanted that site to become.<\/p>\n The transformation of Fazendinha also changed the way Fazendinhando understood its own work. The team had begun with a degraded public space, but Ester realised that another architectural problem existed behind the fa\u00e7ades of the neighbourhood’s houses. She calls them, \u201cinvisible interiors.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside the Homes<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYou walk through a street, you look at the fa\u00e7ade of the house and you think everything is fine. But when you enter the house, you see that there is no bathroom, that there is no structure, that there is often a lot of unhealthy conditions, mould, leaks.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This observation led Fazendinhando to expand from public space into housing, eventually creating Fazendolar<\/a>, a programme dedicated to renovations, extensions and repairs at different scales. The process begins by understanding the specific conditions of each home and developing an intervention according to its needs.<\/p>\n The physical characteristics of these buildings make the work particularly complex. Ester explains that many smaller houses were built without columns or beams. A renovation or extension may therefore require the entire structural system to be rebuilt before any other work can begin. Cracks in slabs and walls can indicate that the building is already under structural stress.<\/p>\n Electrical and plumbing systems present another challenge. Even where a formal water or sewage network reaches the neighbourhood, the connection between the infrastructure inside the house and the external network can be precarious. Fazendinhando frequently finds loose wiring, unsafe electrical installations and improvised plumbing systems that have to be completely redone.<\/p>\n Cintia’s House | Fazendinhando<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n The proximity between houses adds another layer of complexity. An intervention in one property can affect a neighbour’s sewage system or other infrastructure, meaning that the team must also analyse what is happening beyond the walls of the house itself. Access and logistics can be difficult as well, particularly when homes are located at the top of steep areas and materials have to be transported through narrow passageways.<\/p>\n For Ester, the objective is not to make a precarious house simply look better.<\/p>\n In one particularly severe case, the house was at risk of collapsing. An engineer was brought in to assess the structure, and Ester emphasised that simply covering the problems with new finishes would not be enough. \u201cI don’t want to disguise the problem,\u201d she explains. The intervention had to consider what would actually be necessary to provide a safe and dignified home.<\/p>\n The Fazendolar projects show how different conditions produce different architectural responses.<\/p>\n Cintia’s House <\/strong>was the first house entirely rebuilt by the project. The existing structure was too compromised to be reused, so the team demolished the original building and constructed a new one using structural blocks. The plot itself was shaped like a funnel, becoming progressively narrower towards the back, which directly influenced the organisation of the rooms.<\/p>\n Wania’s House | Fazendinhando<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n Wania’s House<\/strong><\/a> had been left vacant because of structural and sanitary problems. The renovation involved new finishes and flooring, plumbing and electrical installations, ceilings and a reorganisation of the layout. The laundry area, previously located outside the house beneath a neighbour’s staircase, was incorporated into the interior. To improve light and ventilation, the team increased the ceiling height and created new openings, including the use of cobog\u00f3s where a conventional window was not possible.<\/p>\n Dona Heleninha’s House | Fazendinhando<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n Dona Heleninha’s<\/strong><\/a> House presented another combination of problems: dark and poorly ventilated rooms, inadequate electrical installations and structural issues. At one point, a ceiling tile fell onto the resident’s bed. Her son was sleeping underneath a staircase, in an improvised space. Here, the renovation had to address structural safety, the organisation of the rooms, natural light and ventilation at the same time.<\/p>\n There are also smaller interventions, each shaped by the specific characteristics of the house. Tiquinho’s House measured only 4 m\u00b2 and had no bathroom; Jos\u00e9 Bas\u00edlio’s House measured 7 m\u00b2; and Dani’s House, measuring 24 m\u00b2, had dampness, mould, a damaged roof and rooms without adequate divisions. In spaces this limited, even basic domestic functions can become difficult to accommodate, leaving little room for privacy, comfort or adequate living conditions. Fazendolar’s interventions<\/a> therefore go beyond improving the appearance of these homes: they can reorganise extremely constrained spaces to make them safer, more functional and more dignified places to live.<\/p>\n According to the Fazendinhando Institute, Fazendolar has delivered more than 580 renovated spaces.<\/a> Its interventions include complete renovations, individual rooms, emergency repairs, fa\u00e7ades and work in passageways.<\/p>\n Building from within<\/strong><\/p>\n The people carrying out these transformations are an important part of the architecture itself. Ester explains that, in housing projects, the people who build the houses are residents of the community. They are paid for their work, and the organisation maintains a permanent team. Around 95% of the renovations are also identified through recommendations from residents themselves. When resources are available, materials are often purchased from businesses within the community.<\/p>\n This means that the impact of a renovation extends beyond the family living in the house. Money circulates within the neighbourhood, while local workers develop professional experience through the projects.<\/p>\n This approach is also at the centre of Fazendeiras<\/a>, Fazendinhando’s professional training programme for women. The programme offers training in areas including construction, gastronomy and crafts, with construction becoming one of its most important areas of activity. Participants can subsequently work on Fazendinhando’s projects and are remunerated for their work.<\/p>\n Fazendeiras | Fazendinhando<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n \u201cWe want them to generate their own transformation in the place where they live.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ester describes the effects of this training in terms of autonomy. Some of the women involved had previously depended on partners to carry out certain tasks. After the training, they began to recognise that they could work in construction themselves. They also became responsible for coordinating community actions and construction efforts.<\/p>\n The organisation therefore distinguishes between different types of work. External volunteers may participate in public-space projects or larger collective actions, but housing projects are carried out primarily by people from the community. For Fazendinhando, this is part of its commitment to strengthening the local economy rather than bringing an external workforce into the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n A Neighbourhood Still Changing<\/strong><\/p>\n Fazendinhando’s work takes place within a neighbourhood that continues to change. Public investment in infrastructure, sanitation, housing and public spaces<\/a> has gradually altered parts of the Complexo Parais\u00f3polis, while the communities themselves continue to adapt and build. The transformation of Jardim Colombo is therefore not a single project with a defined endpoint, but an ongoing process taking place at different scales.<\/p>\n Fazendinhando remains focused on the spaces where those larger changes meet everyday life: the house, the passageway, the public space and the people who use them.<\/p>\n Architecture as Autonomy<\/strong><\/p>\n For Ester, however, the project’s impact cannot be measured only by the number of houses renovated or spaces transformed.<\/p>\n She describes Fazendinhando as an organisation working across territorial, cultural and environmental questions, rather than looking only at housing. The broader objective is to generate autonomy within the territory.<\/p>\n This is also why residents are not treated simply as recipients of architectural services. Ester emphasises that even when projects are provided free of charge, residents participate actively in the process and have a role in deciding what happens in their own neighbourhood. \u201cThey see themselves as agents of transformation<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n She recalls a particularly revealing moment during research for Fazendinha, when the team asked residents what they wanted for the space. One resident responded with a question that stayed with her: \u201cI can choose? I can decide?<\/strong>\u201d For Ester, the question revealed how unfamiliar the idea of having a say in the transformation of one’s own territory can become in places where residents are accustomed to the absence of infrastructure and public decision-making.<\/p>\n This is why she is careful about the role Fazendinhando plays. The organisation does not want to arrive in a community presenting itself as the solution to local problems. Instead, its methodology is based on showing examples, sharing knowledge and strengthening existing leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not here to create dependency. Quite the opposite: we want to encourage the initiatives that already exist.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n For Ester, lasting transformation depends on strengthening the people who are already there. \u201cThis transformation as a whole will only happen when the leaders of each territory are actually strengthened.\u201d <\/strong>That perspective brings the article back to where Fazendinhando began: a piece of land that residents had already named, used and cared for long before it became a formal architectural project. The work of Fazendinhando has not been to impose a new identity on that territory, but to work with what already exists: its buildings, its people, its knowledge and its capacity to change.<\/p>\n From the former dumping ground of Fazendinha to the interior of a 4-square-metre house, the scale may change, but the principle remains the same. Architecture becomes a way of making conditions visible, correcting what is unsafe, creating what is missing and, ultimately, giving residents greater control over the places they inhabit.<\/p>\n For Ester, that is where architecture’s role extends beyond construction: through education, participation and design, people can begin to recognise themselves as capable of transforming their own territory.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Weitere Informationen<\/em><\/p>\n Fazendinhando – About the institute<\/strong><\/em><\/a> Parque Fazendinha – From dumping ground to public park<\/strong><\/em><\/a> Fazendolar – Housing improvements<\/strong><\/em><\/a> Fazendeiras – Professional training for women<\/strong><\/em><\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/beedier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Fazendinhando_Jardim-Colombo_1-1-300x111.avif\")
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\nBackground on the organisation and its work across housing, public spaces, professional training and community initiatives in Jardim Colombo, S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nFurther details of the park\u2019s transformation, including the participatory design process and residents\u2019 involvement in shaping the space.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nIndividual projects illustrating the programme\u2019s approach to renovations, structural repairs and the challenges of working within constrained domestic spaces.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe institute\u2019s training programme, combining practical skills in construction, gastronomy and crafts with opportunities to work on community projects.<\/em><\/p>\n