Cantinho do Céu, São Paulo, Brazil (Boldarini Arquitetura e Urbanismo)  

Another day I received a picture from a sidewalk completely blocked by a tree, to post on Urbitandem. It would have been ordinary if the sender hadn´t been a seven-year-old child who was walking home from swimming class! That filled my heart with pride and hope. If children were aware and educated by us that these situations cannot be tolerated as normal, the future of our cities won´t be the same.  

Bebela´s walkway  

The publication Casacadabra 2 – Cidades para brincar follow this line of reasoning: "We believe education can open people´s eyes, from early ages, towards the place they live in. The series Casacadabra is a small step to this transformation", say the authors. They are Bianca Antunes and Simone Sayegh, also responsible for Casacadabra – invenções para morar from Pistache Editorial, a successful crowdfunding project from 2016 which brought examples of houses.  

The second volume to this series brings ten public spaces from around the globe, told by Lina and Tiê: a girl and her adventurous capybara. They travel to incredible places, from the High Line in New York, going through Copenhagen, Rome, Iran, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Seul and Medellin, arriving in Sao Paulo where they show examples such as the Paulista Avenue shut down for cars on Sundays and the linear park in Cantinho do Ceu, on the waterfront of Billings reservoir. The illustrations are signed by Luísa Amoroso.  

Superkilen, Copenhagen, Denmark  

High Line, New York, United States  

Avenida Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil  

And this is not meant only for architects´ children! This is for everyone: kids, adults, schools… as long as they are interested in getting to know amazing places in the world and also urbanism concepts, based on “playful and interactive learning, and seemingly complicated words explained in simple and didactic way”. The initiative, pioneer in Brazil for bringing content of this nature to children, is now collecting funds for publishing a 80-page book via Catarse.   

Check it out:
https://www.catarse.me/casacadabra2   

The counterparts which include the book start from 70 reais. There are also other rewards such as an urban stencil for children to draw their public spaces and acknowledgements on the book.