Onde há fumaça, há fogo. Parque Ecológico das Sucupiras: Memorial Vivo do Cerrado

Abstract

The work focuses on a project proposal that responds to the Management Plan of the Sucupiras Ecological Park in Brasília, Federal District, Brazil. The Park is an ecological reserve in the central region of the Brasília Metropolitan Area that protects a piece of the region's native savanna biome, known as Cerrado. Situated between the Monumental Axis and the Sudoeste neighborhood, the park is the result of a mobilization process by local residents who, organized in the Sucupiras Ecological Park Association (APES, in Portuguese), advocated for the protection of this zone, which remained without designated use for decades and served informally as a waste deposit. Since its designation as a reserve, it has become an important hub for the neighborhood and the city, balancing efforts to preserve the Cerrado with educational and leisure activities. For two decades, the Park has operated under the constant risk of de-characterization. Surrounded by a consolidated urban area, maintaining its status as a sustainable use ecological reserve requires ongoing mediation between the realities of the city and the Cerrado to be protected. This already fragile situation has become even more sensitive in the face of pressure from the recently developed ''blocks 500' in Sudoeste. Sectors associated with these new superblocks have worked to connect the park to the new real estate developments as a common-use park. To ensure that the designated role of the protected area by Sucupiras Ecological Park is fulfilled, responsible agencies and civil society sectors, including APES, which continues actively involved in its maintenance efforts, have prepared a Management Plan. This document establishes guidelines for the park's operation, proposing interventions that better support its use by the public while preserving its ecological reserve status. This work aims to develop an intervention proposal for the Park, deriving a program from within the Management Plan. To do so, it examines contemporary Brasília, particularly its ongoing process of urbanization. The goal is to leverage its location, adjacent to the Monumental Axis of the Plano Piloto, where the city's monumental scale develops, a site with great potential for influence in the symbolic, political, and patrimonial spheres - by design. The intention is to use architectural tools to interpret and propose within this context, informed by recent investigations that problematize the boundaries between built heritage and natural heritage, seeking to build a theoretical framework that, based on this concrete case, integrates a broader discussion about architecture's role in the urgent debate on culture and nature. It thereby constitutes an experience of collaboration between activism, artistic and academic production in support of defending habitable conditions in Brazilian cities for all species.