The practice engagement in São Paulo, conducted as part of UCL's Development Planning Unit (DPU) MSc Building and Urban Design in Development (BUDD) programme, involved direct collaboration with the housing movements MTST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Teto) and MSTC (Movimento Sem Teto do Centro). We collaborated with Occupação Lélia Gonzales (MTST-led) and Occupação 9 de Julho (MSTC-led), using participatory and spatial research methods.

Engagement included documenting residents' life stories, creating emotional and spatial maps, conducting interviews, guided walks, and collaborative workshops to understand everyday practices, care, solidarity, and resistance within occupations. We critically examined how urban policies and social narratives in São Paulo define "worthiness": who is deemed deserving or undeserving of living in the city, based on factors like race, class, gender, employment, and legal status.

The projects highlighted acts of resistance and solidarity, showing how occupation residents mobilise cultural, political, and social tools to reframe their public image and assert their right to the city not just through transgressive inhabitance, but by actively contesting and redefining the social benchmarks of worthiness imposed by state, market, and society.

Supervised by: Giovanna Astolfo, Laia García Fernández, Mahsa Alami Fariman, Milagros Vidal