The Center for City Studies | Arq.Futuro Laboratory (from the original, Centro de Estudos das Cidades | Laboratório Arq.Futuro) held its annual meeting with donors on November 25. The meeting gave supporters an overview of the activities that marked 2024, when, in May, the at that time Arq.Futuro of Cities Laboratory (from the original, Laboratório Arq.Futuro de Cidades) at Insper became one of the university's “knowledge centers”, a fact that was a landmark as a reference point in the field in which it operates. At the event, donors and other guests learned details about the new governance guidelines, watched a presentation on the highlights of that year, and received a booklet with a summary of the activities of the Center's five study groups and two initiatives.

 

Entitled “Insper Cities in Numbers” (from the original, “Insper Cidades em números”), the presentation listed some of the 15 research projects and studies for 2024. Since the restructuring, the Center for City Studies has been organized into the following study groups: Architecture and the City; Urban Economy, Smart Cities and Big Data; Housing, Real Estate and Regulation; Urban Mobility; and Social Urban Planning and Public Security. Added to that, there are also the two initiatives: Women and Territories, and Urban Health, associated with Insper's Center for Management and Public Policies (from the original, Centro de Gestão e Políticas Públicas - CGPP).

 

This year, the Center hosted 13 classes of executive education courses (three of which were customized and carried out in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank, the Mackenzie School of Architecture and Urbanism, the Tide Setubal Foundation, Diagonal Social, and the CCR Group). The fourth edition of the Postgraduate Program in Social Urbanism - Urban Management, Public Policies and Society, carried out with the support of three partners (Itaú Cultural, Manu Institute, and Diagonal Social), had 25 students. The Center launched four books, published 13 academic articles, advised 36 students, and created four international partnerships and exchanges.

 

The Center also promoted or co-promoted 12 events at Insper; maintained 17 national partnerships and cooperation agreements; published ine editions of the monthly newsletter, InsperCidades (from the original); held 15 meetings of the Study Group on Cities; took part in 14 academic meetings; and was a reference in 57 news reports, interviews, and articles in the Brazilian media. Another achievement in 2024 was the highlighting of the theme of “cities” in Insper's teaching activities, addressed in undergraduate subjects, scientific initiation projects, practical research projects, dissertations, Capstone projects, and subjects in lato sensu and stricto sensu postgraduate courses.

 

Tomas Alvim, general coordinator, defined the event with donors as a moment to celebrate the five years of history of the Laboratory. “The meeting acknowledges the people who believed in an idea and who are now reaping the rewards of this investment in a laboratory that has become a knowledge center for Insper, one of the most important universities in the country,” says Alvim. “Another important point is that our academic production and everything already underway in research, teaching, communication, and engagement activities consolidate our Center for City Studies as a reference point for the study of cities.” 

 

In Alvim’s opinion, supporters are pleased to learn that the donated resources have been used in projects that have a vast impact on society, since the social dimension is one of the purposes of philanthropy. With the Laboratory’s new status within Insper, it is time to plan for the next decade. “We are already thinking about an agenda for ten years ahead, not just five years. The idea is to renew and expand partnerships as well as, in fact, further consolidate the work that the Center has already been doing,” says Alvim.

 

One of the gratifying highlights of the meeting was the presence not only of partners from ongoing projects, but also of supporters of past projects, which indicates a desire to remain in contact, says Professor Paulina Achurra, institutional coordinator of the Center. She emphasizes the importance of ensuring the opportunity to talk to guests and hear suggestions from donors after the presentation of the 2024 results.

 

For example, the Manu Institute, which provides nine research grants, noted that students from the Southeast region predominate in the Postgraduate Program in Social Urbanism – 90 of the 128 students who graduated from the four classes. “I really like that they proposed bringing more people from other regions of Brazil,” says Paulina. “There are economic reasons, of course, as it is very difficult and expensive to transport people to São Paulo. However, if having an impact on Brazil is our mission, then we cannot ignore the need to increasingly expand the Laboratory’s activities.”

 

 

The numbers for the Center for City Studies | Arq.Futuro Laboratory in 2024:

 

• 15 research projects/studies: Placemaking Masp; Placemaking Artistic Culture; Placemaking Insper (integrated projects: Rethinking Public Spaces – Uberabinha street, La Esquina and Parking Day); Environmental Education from 3 to 30; Making Green Work for Health (from the original, MGW4H) – Sprint Fapesp, in partnership with the Urban Health Initiative; Structuring of the Housing Policy Inducing Platform (from the original, PIPOH); Network/Cities Research; Consulting for the creation and implementation of the Project Coexist (from the original, Projeto Convive) of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security; Implementation of a Tactical Urbanism and Community Co-creation Project in Jardim Ângela; Monitoring the Impact of Families that Received Housing Improvements; Trustworthiness Group (from the original, Grupo Confiança RS); Heat Stress in Heliópolis; Urban Gardens in Heliópolis; “Health in the Municipality of São Paulo, a space-time approach”; Development of tools for applying interviews in the Capital's Death Verification Service (Svoc).

 

• 13 classes of executive education courses (3 customized): Housing policies: the case of São Paulo; Urban mobility management: a path to smart and sustainable cities; Urban planning and city regulations; Smart cities: technology, digital transformation and urban innovation; Sanitation in irregular areas: challenges for universalization; Housing policies: the case of the coastline of São Paulo; Social urbanism and public safety; Urban mobility management: financing of public transportation; Blue economy and cities (2 classes); Decarbonization of transportation in Brazil: Future paths for a national plan (partnership: IDB); Extension in social urbanism (partnership: FAU-Mackenzie, Tide Setubal Foundation, and Diagonal Social); Urban mobility: Immersion in Medellín and Bogotá (partnership: CCR).

 

• 1 class of the Postgraduate course in Social Urbanism, with 25 students and 3 partners (Itaú Cultural, Manu Institute, and Diagonal Social).

 

• 13 academic articles published and 36 students’ research projects advised.

 

• 4 publications: “Human Mobility Guide”, with the Ulysses Guimarães Foundation; “Electromobility Guide”, with Itaú Unibanco S.A.; “Practical Guide to Social Urbanism”, with Diagonal Social (all published by BEĨ Editora); and “Overview of favelas and “invisibilized” communities in the state of São Paulo”, with TETO Brasil and Diagonal Social.

 

• 4 international partnerships/exchanges: EAFIT (from the original, Escuela de Administración, Finanzas e Instituto Tecnológico; a Colombian university located in Medellín); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States); New York University (New York, United States); TUDelft (from the original, Technische Universiteit Delft; Delft University of Technology, in the Netherland).

 

• 12 events promoted or co-promoted by Insper, 17 partnerships/cooperation agreements, 9 editions of the monthly newsletter InsperCidades (up to November), 15 meetings of the Study Group on Cities, 14 participations in academic meetings, and 57 references in the media (until November 2025).

 

• 6 disciplines with the theme “cities” in Insper undergraduate courses, 4 in lato sensu graduate courses, 2 in stricto sensu graduate courses, and 13 in executive education; 36 students involved in scientific initiation projects concentrating on cities, as final dissertations.