Last thoughts

When describing the region of Paraná, it is very important to mention the urban planning accomplishments of the city of Curitiba. It is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Paraná and has been internationally recognized for exceling in sustainable urban development. Curitiba is known worldwide for being the greenest city on earth for its eco-city initiatives, which began long before the idea of creating environmentally friendly cities. Over the years, Curitiba and its citizens have seen a continuous and highly significant elevation in their quality of life, and have chosen to live a life surrounded by green spaces and free of pollution.  All of these positive changes in Curitiba have created a change that has taken place in the culture itself. The spirit within the Curitiban culture and its civic pride has risen dramatically.

On our visit today to UNILIVRE, Universidade Livre do Meio Ambiente, we were able to see up close the efforts the city makes to become more sustainable, which have led them to be recognized a leading model for ecological urban development and planning.

UNILIVRE opened its doors on the National Earth Day in the year of 1991. It is their mission to create environmental consciousness, as well as disseminate theoretical and practical knowledge in order to build a sustainable society. In this approach, citizens, regardless of their profession or social class, have as a duty to collaborate towards achieving environmental wellness.

Every element in UNILIVRE has a meaning.  The different colored arches built in the entrance, symbolized the purification every person receives before entering the campus. The color black symbolizes pollution, green nature and yellow richness and wealth. The classroom colors also represented a nature’s element. Brown symbolizes the earth, red fire, glass air and blue water.

UNILIVRE’s campus, looked like the setting for a fairy tale. Even though the lake was artificial, the place was outstanding. Eduardo, our guide, explained how the current campus is the result of a wound created by human activity. The forests surrounding us had been exploited for several years leaving the area lifeless. However, in the year on 1987, the forest was left to grow again. This method is known as urban acupuncture, established by Jaime Lerner. It is the idea of re-energizing degraded and vulnerable spaces through design intervention. 

Eduardo, also explained that the water in the lake is stuck and does not receive oxygen, which causes it to acquire an unclean look. An oxygenator is needed, however, there aren’t enough resources to cover these expenses. This made me realize that what makes Curitiba’s and UNILIVRE’S accomplishments even more astonishing is the fact that all this was achieved through the means of a very limited budget.           

Given all of these measures of success, the question that arises is how was this accomplished? UNILIVRE and the city of Curitiba have allowed me to realize that a sustainable city can be achieved. However, such a large-scale transformation and regeneration of a city needs the collaboration of everyone to make it a reality. This success is due to the continuous development of the city’s infrastructure and culture.