This Friday, October 21, Prof. Nirce Medvedovski presents the ATHIS Law, its influence on the Faculty and reflections on possible future directions for social assistance.
Today, 10 am at the FAUrb auditorium, the cycle of public classes in celebration of FAUrb-UFPel’s 50th anniversary continued. This time with an important speech coming from within the house itself: Prof. Nirce Medvedovski presents to everyone the trajectory of the ATHIS law (Technical Assistance for Social Interest Housing), its repercussion on UFPel and Brazil, as well as reflections on possible future directions.
What is ATHIS? Federal Law No. 11,888/2008
Known as the Law of Technical Assistance for Social Interest Housing, it guarantees that families with an income of up to three minimum wages receive public and free technical assistance for the preparation of projects, monitoring and execution of works necessary for the construction, renovation, expansion or land tenure regularization of their dwellings.
CAU-BR (learn more)
Nirce Saffer Medvedovski is a professor at FAUrb-UFPel since 1980. Graduated at UFRGS (1975), she also obtained her master’s degree there in Urban and Regional Planning (1983) and, later on, a PhD in Urban Environmental Structures from USP (1998). She was director of the Unit from 1997-2001 and 2001-2005. She is currently the coordinator of the NAUrb Research Group (Center for Architecture and Urbanism), where she works mainly with social housing, urban requalification and regularization, and post-occupancy evaluation.
Establishing a parallel between Medicine and Architecture, the Professor formulated a hypothesis to the public of a multi-professional residency being incorporated into UFPel. An adequate environment for students and professionals to work with the ATHIS law, developing citizen and professional ethics. This implies expanding access to public resources, housing qualification and urban appropriation. As we know, the master’s degree in Brazil is aimed at the academic world and not at the practical one, so this dynamic would concede a specialization title.
The proposal was inspired by the Faculty of Architecture of the Federal University of Bahia (FAUFBA), which launched the Residency in Architecture, Urbanism and Engineering (Residence AU+E/UFBA) as a postgraduate course in Technical Assistance, Housing and Right to City in 2013. According to UFBA “the AU+E/UFBA Residency also covers fieldwork for technical assistance and project design, through workshops, research, planning, and other related activities.”
This hypothesis of the multiprofessional residency comes with the intention of providing a stage for these wonderful social practices to take place, uniting scholars. Within a multidisciplinary society, it is clear that the Architect is the agent that translates demand into project design. However, this is just one piece of a much more complex puzzle. Participatory methods, developed alongside the user, are the result of the efforts of sociologists, anthropologists, social workers, psychologists, therapists and different areas of human knowledge. Understanding the dynamics of minimal dwellings and their evolutionary forms is the first step towards serving families.
A provocation sits still: Is it possible to rethink graduate curriculum based on extension actions? How not to waste disciplines potential on meeting real demands of society? How would new professionals be impacted if requests from underserved groups were embraced?