It is no surprise to learn that, before turning his hand to architecture, Marcio Kogan directed films.

“In Rio, the landscape comes to you,” Brazilian architect Arthur Casas says about his commission to renovate a penthouse apartment in Rio de Janeiro's Urca neighborhood. Casas, who has an office in São Paulo, plus one in New York City, had quite a landscape to work with.

When the Jardim Edite favela was scheduled for demolition by S'o Paulo's city authorities, most of its 800 families had little expectation that they would be allowed to remain in their neighborhood.