Public Park 2021 | Artur Moreira
NOVA ERA
With approximately 18,000 inhabitants, Nova Era is historically a mining town that has been settled for more than 300 years. In 1978 Artur Moreira’s parents selected an empty plot of land and constructed their family house in an undeveloped area of Nova Era in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Artur’s family home would be the first of more than 200 houses constructed in the new development named Colina lying on the western side of Brazilian highway 381. While Brazil’s vast size roughly equals that of the continental forty-eight US states, it does not have the extensive network of Interstate highways that the USA has.
Brazil does however have amazing highways that are true great engineering masterpieces traversing the country’s rugged mountains though complex bridges and tunnels. Route 381 is one of the twelve major Brazilian highways and links the Minas Gerais interior with the Atlantic Ocean bringing thousands of people through the small town of Nova Era each day.
The 200+ houses sit high on a hill located on the western side of Route 381 and were constructed in the late 1970’s and into the 1980’s on former farmland. As a new neighborhood, Colina was a desirable oasis where everyone knew each other. Part of the appeal to the neighborhood was that it was only connected to the existing town by a concrete stairs leading down to a pedestrian bridge crossing over Route 381. Over the years the pedestrian bridge and concrete stairs had become a hangout area for vagrants and strewn with letter and debris.
PREVIOUS YEARS
