Few cities show bombast and brashness like Brasília. Fulfilling a promise in Brazil's constitution to have a federal capital built in the country's hinterlands, President Juscelino Kubitschek ordered Brasília's construction as part of his "fifty years of prosperity in five" plan of the 1950s. Brasília emerged out of no where in Brazil's tropical savannah quickly, with its original construction completed in less than four years before its inauguration in 1960.
The locus of Brazilian modernist architecture, Brasília reaps its share of admiration and scorn. Many of the most important government buildings along the city's wide central avenue, Eixo Monumental (Monumental Axis), have been remodelled and updated to cope with the city's heat. It's superquadras, rows of six-story apartment buildings that from an aerial view give Brasília an appearance of an airplane or butterfly. Often panned for their Orwellian atmosphere, the superquadras now are among the city's most prized real estate. For others who work in the city, the cost of living means long commutes or train rides from far-flung suburbs.
The growth of the city far exceeded the expectations of Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa, lead architect and urban planner. But success has also led to strained water sources, poor air quality, and devastation of the cerrado landscape in which the city is located. Green building could help this city of 2.6 million recover in the long run. To that end, the city celebrated the opening of an ultra-modern building that houses finance offices and a leading environmental organisation that is slated to gain Brasília's first LEED certification. Other LEED buildings in the city centre are on the drawing board.
Brasília's new northwest sector, or Setor Noroeste, is the laboratory for sustainable development. While superquadras include one long shopping boulevard that discourage residents from walking or cycling, Noroeste will have shopping areas every two blocks. To that end, more pedestrian walkways and 44 kms (27 miles) of bicycle paths will allow residents to ditch cars. Building design will allow for solar energy to electrify the homes on sunny days, while reserves of natural gas will power them during cloudy days. To address concerns that the city will run out of fresh water supplies by 2025, efficient rainwater capture systems will harvest much of the city's 60 inches of annual rainfall. And in a creative bid to reduce municipal waste, urban planners have proposed residents separate their garbage and dispose of it into bins connected to giant vacuum tubes that will quickly transfer them to waste treatment plans for recycling. Residents will receive a handbook that will instil environmental awareness while explaining the rules, including only allowing water heating from solar energy and limiting landscaping to native plants.
Not everyone is impressed with the Setor Noroeste plan. Critics point out that the land on which Noroeste will be built is on a water table that supplies much of the city's water and replenishes nearby Lake Paranoá. The plan was rushed without a thorough environmental review. Others point out that in a city where there are 2.3 residents for each car, moving parking spaces from the surface to underground garages will still encourage residents to rely on their own cars. And with a high cost of living, homes in Noroeste aren't affordable for most Brazilian families.
Brasília's move towards a more sustainable city will be bumpy. But as Brazil's global stature rises and more Brazilians, as well as expats, move to this young capital, there is hope and ambition of green living.
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