Marcella Arruda

The Brazilian city-maker Marcella Arruda studied architecture and urbanism at the Escola da Cidade (São Paulo, Brazil) and interactive media design at the Royal Academy of Arts (Den Haag, Netherlands). She collaborated on the publication ‘Protest Camps in International Context: Spaces, Infrastructures,  and Media of Resistance’, worked on the study case of Marconi Occupation (during a 4 month residency, in São Paulo), has been a visiting professor in the programme IHP Cities in the 21st century (SIT Study Abroad) and coordinator of the course ‘Activism, Tactical Urbanism and Insurgent Practices’ at the Institute of Architects of Brazil (IAB). Her research addresses questions in city making and the commons, focusing on issues of biopolitics, being vivid (‘good living’), political ecology, artistic interventions, experimental co-design and build approaches, the architecture of freedom, and pedagogical, regenerative and autonomous practices in the co-production of the city.

Since 2012, she has been invited to facilitate multiple workshops, debates and lectures on methodologies of Situated Design (MIT Press) and critical spatial practices in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, India, Denmark, Portugal and the United Kingdom. She coordinated the network ‘Como Virar Sua Cidade’ (‘how to change your city’), inside the context of Festival Virada Sustentável and The 10th São Paulo Architecture Biennale in 2013. She is a co-founder of ‘MUDA_collective’ (‘change it collective’), an initiative that developed collaborative urban interventions in São Paulo, proposing a new image of the city and arising the citizens’ sense of belonging; and of URBZ practices in Brazil, which took place in the Paraisopolis slum, together with local builders and architecture students. She collaborated on LUSTHOF XL, developing the project Publiekhuis with neighbours from Spinozahof Garden in Den Haag, the Netherlands, and worked for the organization Cities For People (Cidades Para Pessoas), developing research projects in São Paulo and Buenos Aires.

Nowadays, she is one of the coordinators of the Projects axis on The City Needs You Institute (A Cidade Precisa de Você), co-initiator of LabGov São Paulo (Laboratory for the Governance of the Commons), lecturer of the ‘The Future of My City’ (O Futuro da Minha Cidade) events, and co-founder of the programme ‘School With Walls’ (Escola Sem Muros), which was selected for the Brazilian Pavillion in the 16th International Architecture Exhibition | La Biennale di Venezia in 2018.

 Marcella Arruda is a speaker during the Together event on Wednesday, June 20, and during the Co-creating the City day on Thursday, June 21.