Publication

  • Wherever You Find People: The Radical Schools of Oscar Niemeyer, Darcy Ribeiro and Leonel Brizola
    David Chambers and Kevin Haley
    Authors
    Park Books, 2016
  • GRANTEE
    David Chambers & Kevin Haley
    GRANT YEAR
    2015

aberrant architecture (David Chambers and Kevin Haley), image of CIEP Doutor Bento Rubiao, 2012, Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Courtesy of aberrant architecture.

In 2012, aberrant architecture went to Brazil to interview the surviving key figures of the CIEPs (Integrated Centres of Public Education) project—a radical and experimental school building program conceived by Leonel Brizola, Darcy Ribeiro, and Oscar Niemeyer in the 1980s. Their vision was to use design to support and enhance education. Today, this network of more than 500 CIEPs covers the entire city and state of Rio de Janeiro, from towns and villages to favelas and beach resorts. Wherever you find people, you'll find a CIEP. Wherever You Find People combines the oral history of the project, as told by its key stakeholders, with hundreds of never-before-seen images. The result is a vivid documentary of a unique but relatively unknown piece of socially driven public architecture, containing vital lessons for modern school design.

David Chambers and Kevin Haley are directors and cofounders of aberrant architecture, a multidisciplinary design studio and think tank. Aberrant has established a reputation for playful, provocative, and interactive projects, which use architecture and design to introduce new and unexpected ways of experiencing the world. Aberrant has won two D&AD awards and, in 2012, was selected to exhibit in the British Pavilion at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2010, aberrant won a prestigious designer-in-residence position at the Victoria & Albert Museum—the first architectural practice ever to receive that honor. That same year, the practice cofounded the Gopher Hole, a gallery in London. Chambers studied architecture at Bath University, where he was awarded the Barton Willmore Prize for Innovative Design; TU Delft; and the Royal College of Art. He is currently associate lecturer in spatial practices at Central St Martins, University of the Arts London. Haley is currently a studio leader at London Metropolitan University and an associate lecturer at the Royal College of Art.