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Linking Through Infrastructure

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One of the re-occurring themes in the readings and discussions in our class has been the boundaries between what we now hesitate to call formal and informal cities. Urban Think Tank’s label for blurring the boundaries between the two kind of cities, which they called Urban Acupuncture, has fascinated me.

A topic which has come up in this week’s readings was the connection between slums themselves; not only blurring the existing boundary, but more importantly, creating a strong network. While slums may seem like random, unorganized organisms, they are actually “the consequence of distorted development.”  (Franco) In fact, based on the natural drainage systems in place, one can see that a lot of slums are developed alongside these kinds of natural infrastructure. It is important to recognize that by emphasizing these kinds of infrastructures and creating connections between the slums, they can be transformed from seemingly scattered areas to actual functioning cities. The government is quickly changing it’s role to become a ‘facilitator’ rather than a ‘provider’. (Franco) That being said, it is also curial that the government includes the residents of the slums and creates an atmosphere where both parties contribute to the development. For example, in Indore, the government gave the land residents long term leases and making their stay on the land legal. The residents then went ahead and built their own toilets which connected to the sewage system implemented by the government. The outcome of such collaboration was one where both parties worked together in order to create a connection between the slums, improve infrastructure, and create a more city-like environment. Another aspect of the residents involvement in these projects is that by knowing how certain things work, they are able to pass down the knowledge, work on repairs, and ultimately be more invested in the improvements. According to Slum Networking Along the Indore River makes a really important statement that among the issues of slums, such as health, education, income generation and physical infrastructure, the implementation of physical structure is the most important and effective intervention, with the most direct results. (Franco)

Such infrastructural interventions also create a lot of different kinds of potentials for social interventions too. For example, in the Antonico Creek Urban Project, the government created a canal to better neighborhood sanitation, etc. Next to the canal, the government decided that they would be able to insert programs for pedestrians and cyclists. Immediately, the improved infrastructure allows for a better connection between slums, creates better living standards within each slum, and creates a social infrastructure. (Davidson)

Works Cited

Davidson, Cynthia. “Slum Networking Along the Indore River.” Architectural Design (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.

Franco, Fernando De M. “Filling the Void With Popular Imageries.” Architectural Design (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.

Participatory Mapping

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As James Corner notes in his essay, The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention, maps are often static expressions of an area that do not take any sort of change or time into account. In order for maps to become useful tools that can encourage change, they must begin to address the actual conditions within a location. While it is often easy to be reductive when mapping, it is far more valuable to dig deeper into the possibilities that a map can reveal (Corner 213).
Since mapping is never a neutral exercise, and it will always be seen through a particular lens, what is the most productive way to depict a given location, and how can designers question mapping conventions (Corner 221). In such a rapidly changing world, it is necessary to include time in almost any map that is meant to enable change (Corner 226). Additionally, representing a population on a cultural level, which can only be achieved with community participation, will provide an invaluable tool for any designer. There are numerous projects that demonstrate the success of community input in architectural and planning projects, and if mapping is supposedly what is generating these designs, it only makes sense that it would also be driven by local knowledge (Corner 241). By producing a “game board” map, as Corner refers to it, architects would be able to discuss a large variety of concepts proposed by any number of people using one single image as a base. Allowing it to be an open system with a factual base that can be altered depending on need, or desire would invariably create productive designs that consider the culture, and its future.
In places such as São Paulo, there is a desperate need to accurately, yet inventively record the conditions of the informal areas of the city. A simple, aerial view will not suffice, since it cannot accurately represent the character of any given neighborhood. Tracings from satellite images of favelas would simply appear as a jumbled mass of lines with no boundaries, and would not give any insight into the culture or atmosphere. In a location that is in a time sensitive situation regarding urban renewal as well as addressing the ever worsening flooding problems, an accurate and future oriented map is essential to create any new designs.
In the case of São Paulo’s flooding problem, it has become increasingly necessary to divert flood waters to reservoirs throughout the city’s periphery (Franco 2). In order to best decide where reservoirs and accompanying canals and widened streets, designers should create maps that address concerns in each specific neighborhood that will be effected. By doing so, this will allow architects to address specific concerns of the entire community, not simply a government official who has never even stepped foot in the favela before. Architectural interventions in informal settlements must take into account the vast variety that exists even from one neighborhood to another, in addition to the creation of accurate maps that take both the comments of the community as well as the physical and temporal aspects of the area.

James Corner: Agency of Mapping
Franco de Mello: Filling Voids

Connecting the Urban Fabric

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It is often thought that he slum is an island of poverty and despair within the context of the institutionalized city. Many times it is forgotten that these “islands” themselves are bigger than the actual city they are a part of. Furthermore, it seems as if the causes or root issues which brings about these slums in the first place is completely forgotten thanks to the power of “city representation” falling in the hands of the elite. As Cynthia Davidson states in Slum Networking, “ This separation or isolation between sectors is of politics in nature and prevents urban equality”. [1]
The city and the slum should not be thought as separate identities. Rather, the occurrences of the slum should be thought at beneficial to those of the city. Through projects of infrastructure in slums one can see changes happen in the rest of the city as well. The whole city should not be thought of as islands of poverty but rather the whole city as a network that can “net” the city together. Furthermore, we should think of slums as not a disease that weathers away the urban fabric but rather “a consequence of distorted development” [1].
Many times the basic necessities of these forgotten “ islands of despair” are left without treatment and as result the slums continue to grow and worsen in condition. In India many slums develop along the path of natural river water networks that run through or around the city. This many times is the case due to the lack of sewerage coverage and plumbing into the homes of these individuals. As result, the river becomes the only form of sewage because it is the only available solution to the problem of water waste these individuals have. Cynthia Davidson explains that, “In India a large part of the population is left out of this man made sewage network, so that the natural drainage courses become a secondary sewage system and, simultaneously, the armature for slum growth. “ [1]
Indore, India has identified the location of slums within the pivotal point of the Khan and Saraswati rivers. To adapt to these natural factors a project utilizing an urban infrastructure path was created in order to take care of the issues regarding sewage, storm drainage, and fresh water services. The project was carried out by the Indore development authority but with additional help from Great Britain’s Department for international development. The cost of the project totaled off to 1,800,00 U.S dollars [1] while the entire water system did not require a single pumping station. The effect of this water infrastructure project allowed families to gain appreciation for their neighborhood because finally they were feeling accepted by the larger city context. No longer were they marginalized citizens but physically and symbolically were connected to the rest of the inhabitants.
The project allowed for the creation of programs that benefited the inhabitants. Community involvement in the project allowed women to participate in the decision process of many of the most important design issues. Moreover, the creation of in house bathrooms lessened the danger that women had to go through when utilizing the river. Youth programs were also created as a result of community involvement which allowed new youth clubs to emerge. Thus, the result of the built project not only created better quality of living for the inhabitants but the decision process was critical in creating a stronger community.

1. Davidson, Cynthia C., ed. 1998. “Slum Networking of Indore City.” In Legacies for the Future: Contemporary Architecture in Islamic Societies. London: Thames and Hudson, 54-65.

Mapping as an Initiator

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Mapping is been  typically thought of merely as a means to catalog what is in a particular space but new forms of mapping have uncovered the potential for mapping to instead become a generator uncover what could become of a given space.(1) This agenda of sorts has always been hidden within the practice of mapping. This is due to the fact that mapping has always had an abstract nature; resulting in selection, “…omission, isolation, distance, and codification.”(1) What this ends up meaning is that through the mapping process certain things become evident without any conscious effort of actually doing so.

Moving from mere unconscious discovery to deliberately harnessing the potential in this newly discovered, though not technically new mode of representation offers an innovative look into a somewhat forgotten construct of many cities; the slums. The architecture firm MMBB Arquitetos has been researching new interventions and how they affect the emergence of a new social class living in the slums of the world’s most rapidly growing cities.

There are two projects in Sao Paulo highlighted in the reading Filling Voids, both having to do with water and sanitation in slums; one named Watery Voids the other Antonico Creek Urban Project.(3) The general rule here is that the solution to an urban problem in one area is more than likely found in another; this means looking at the big picture, the entire city. This process can be done through the use of critical mapping, in other words, mapping with intent to find discoveries.

The storm-water reclamation reservoirs setup by the Brazilian government to solve the flooding problem in Sao Paulo is the basis for the Watery Voids project. The idea proposed by MMBB is to “reconcile the metropolitan and the local scales of these interventions.” This project has set out to take advantage of resources at hand to generate communities. Most of the ideas put forth involve the integration of the reservoirs with the urban fabric in order to allow the community to interact with the water.(3) The second project in Sao Paulo, provides those living in favelas open outdoor space, essentially park space running parallel to an open run-off canal. Again, the intention here is to provide space for communities to blossom.

Other such projects revolved around combating both the social and physical spread of cities with large slums have taken place in India. One of these many projects beginning with a study which concludes that slums are consistently located along natural drainage paths.(2) It has become the general theme that the upgrading and integration of slums to the rest of the city is a difficult task, however, the only true way to accomplish such a difficult task is by proposing solutions which are mutually beneficial to both the slum and the larger extent of the city.(2) A networking project located in Indore sets out to create integrated infrastructure which for sewage and storm drainage, and fresh-water which follows the natural drainage paths the Khan and Saraswati Rivers. This particular project not only provides and removes water from the city as a whole but also provides the slum communities with an added sense of security (having personal bathing facilities and no longer being at risk of attack in a public bathing facility) and decrease the hardships which families in the area face day in and day out.(2)

These infrastructure building initiatives bolster the community and lead to an improved quality of life. These dramatic improvements though initiated by the government are then carried on by the community with vigor in other forms.

(1) James Corner: Agency of Mapping

(2) Cynthia Davidson: Slum Networking

(3) Franco de Mello: Filling Voids

Competition and Boundary

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As described by Daniela Fabricius in her article “Resisting Representation”, Rio de Janiero is a city filled with urban islands, favelas, which are geographically and culturally isolated. However the fact is that these urban islands are tied to the city with submerged structure. Favelas are everywhere in Rio. “The geography of marginality is identified with the people themselves, even if the place they inhabit is at the core of the city.”(3, Fabricius) The boundaries that separate favelas with formal sector are controlled by the competition between the formal and informal everyday.

Infrastructure, as the current flowing and connecting the city with favelas, is one main aspect in the competition. “Control over urban space is exercised not only through the ownership of property but also through the monopolization infrastructures.” (5, Fabricius) It’s interesting that the infrastructure in favelas is added after the informal settlement formed, as the reverse process of the inhabitation of formal cities with the grid and infrastructure installed first. It’s caused not only because favelas are all self-built, but also the formal infrastructural service provided by state and foreign companies is expansive and inconvenience for favela residence. In this situation, Gatos come out and dominate the competition. Illegal connections are made to legal sources of water and electricity in order to provide necessary infrastructure for favela residence that are unable to get formal utility. Gatos make the extension and connection within the system, at the same time, they provide possibility for representing the informal citizenship:

“citizenship is defined not only by an address but also by one’s utility bills, account numbers, and listing in a phone book, being connected by gatos creates vast populations that are by official standards undefined and unaccounted for, but in truth already intensely linked with the city.” (6, Fabricius)

The informal practice reveals its strength again in the competition on transportation. The routes of vans are organized based on favela residence’s demand. Also, “these vans provide the fastest and often the only way to reach the city centers.” (6, Fabricius) There seems no way for government regulation to help in the competition because of the illegality and flexibility of vans and the “van mafia”.

One the other hand, the government tries to take back control over the favelas through series of practices of “the favela pacification progress”. In the article “ Pacification and 24 Hour Surveillance in Rocinha”, author Carman introduces the competitive condition between government force and the drug gangs in favelas. The favelas become the battlefield of the invasion of these two forces. Rocinha becomes the “best watched place in the world” due to “cameras monitors watching nearly everything that goes on in public in Rocinha.” (Carman)

Three groups involving in these competitions are favela residence, government and illegal armed group. They are creating and defining the boundary of the favelas through the choice in the competitions.

 

1.Fabricius, Daniela, “Resisting Representation”
2.Carman, Andrew,”Pacification and 24 Hour Surveillance in Rocinha”, http://favelissues.com/2013/02/14/pacification-and-24-hour-surveillance-in-rocinha/

Young Cities

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Informality is NOT exclusively a term for slums and poor cities. Although we have discussed informality within the context of the Global South, I believe that we need to remember that informality occurs within cities in Western Europe and the US. Architects have even shed light on this condition in what we may call cities of the Global North. For example, Rem Koolhaas describes in “Delirious New York” behavioral attributes within one of the most regulated cities in the world. Informality is a condition of human behavior and multitude of personalities colliding within a cluster of space. I believe that if the term “Informality” is going to be used specifically towards cities of the Global South, its definition must be detailed more towards slums or a new and more appropriate term must take its place.

Informal, by definition, means, not according to the prescribed, official, or customary way or manner. I believe that as many authors have mentioned, slums exude informality. I also believe that formal cities also exude informality. Not necessarily to the same amount but it is not strictly a quality of slums. There is a clear distinction between what these authors are calling the informal city and the formal city but I don’t believe that it is simply as black and white as formal verse informal. There must be something else that causes this disparity of formality.

Looking back through the histories of formal cities, there was a time when informality had a stronger presence within that society. For example, looking at Italian cities like Florence, before a ruling merchant controlled the entirety of Florence; the city was broken up into hundreds of tower houses that demarcated neighborhoods of powerful families. This same condition is seen in the favelas of Rio De Janiero as described by Daniela Fabricius in “Resisting Representation”. She explains, “If favelas are islands and the city is the sea, then that sea is filled with currents, routes tides…and pirates” (5). Although Florence is considered a formal city today, it was far from formal when it was still a young settlement.

Even age might not be the most appropriate term to explain what occurs in cities of the global south; but, I believe that it is getting at something beyond simply the formal verses the informal. There are slums and favelas which are now receiving infrastructure which made them, by definition, slums for not having them. I am starting to believe that it is just a matter of time before cities of the global south step towards the global north.

The Unignorable Favela

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The favelas of Rio de Janiero have the reputation of being the informal. As Daniela Fabricius had stated in “Resisting Representation” the favelas are unmapped and ignored in city’s municipal surveys. The favelas though are redefining how they are informal. All the elements that make up the formal city exist in some form or another in the informal city. Electricity, television, public trasportion all exist in the informal city. They emulate and mimic their formal counter parts but differ to fit the informal context. The informal counterparts are cheaper but still as integral to their existence and operation.

The implications of this are that conflict inevitably occurs are the moments of overall and threshold of the formal and informal city. The vans that supply transportation to the informal city now illegally shadow the the formal buses that support the formal city. The informal city’s electricity comes from electricity stolen from the formal city. The same can be said for television cable. Interestingly though the municipal government admits that the informal infrastructure, especially transportation, is needed to keep the city from operating.

This becomes important for the city to understand. If the arteries of the city’s circulation and infrastructure need informal options to maintain’s the city operation then ignoring the favela may no longer be a viable option. If maps of Rio show the favelas as not existing because they are informal then the informal infrastructure need exists in a gray area of the  maniple government’s vision. The government either ignores their existence or acknowledges that they are practicing illegally. Yet the government admits that these system are needed for the city to operate.

This means that the informal city can no longer be ignored or unmapped. The municipal government has placed itself in a postion to ignore certain aspects of the informal city but still rely on certain aspects of the informal city. The municipal government has become hypocritical in its relationship with the informal city. But the municipal government’s need of certain aspects of the informal may be the way the informal becomes mapped. If the area of conflict where hypocricy exists where thought of a seeds to map the informal, potential exists to connect and thus legitimize the informal to the formal. This could be where illegal aspects of the informal gain legitimacy and integration. The key to helping the informal could exist in how the informal and formal meet and integrate.

Daniela Fabricius, Resisting Representation: The Informal Geographies of Rio de Janiero (Harvard Design Magazine, 2008).

Implementing Networks

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As Daniela Fabricius mentions in her article Resisting Representation, what lies just beyond the “networked society” is often neglected, meaning that we must search out the information in order to fill in the vast gaps in our knowledge (Fabricius 8).
With such an immense amount of the world’s population living in favelas, and other types of informal settlements without safe or reliable access to the infrastructure that many of us take for granted each and every day, we must create flexible solutions that can be implemented once a community is well established. Infrastructure such as water, transportation, sewage, and electricity was originally omitted from the vast majority, if not the entirety of informal settlements at their creation (Fibricius 3). Over time as settlements illegally add these networks on their own often in a haphazard way, it becomes necessary to create new infrastructure that can facilitate growth, and connect them with the formal city more directly.
There are a variety of possibilities for systems that can be implemented that will aid in the improvement of informal settlements. Urban Think Tank brings up a variety of their own ideas in Beyond Shelter Architecture and Human Dignity. They propose improvements ranging from building stairs, to creating a cable car system, to harvesting rainwater, to adding public programs on sites that would be unsafe to build on (Aquilino).
When adding or amending the transportation system in a city, Beyond Shelter Architecture and Human Dignity mentions that “where existing bus routes only connect the city and the favela, reinforcing the division between the two and the city’s fragmentation, a new bus line, bootstrapped onto the city system, can create a network of interconnections within the slum itself” (Aquilino 1). Often when looking at informal settlements like those in Rio, it is hard to differentiate various areas within a large favela, so it is simple to forget that the entire favela is not a single, interconnected entity. Is it possible that by creating links between each neighborhood within an informal city, there would be a greater sense of community? It would most likely take a variety of programmatic interventions, such as Urban Think Tank’s Vertical Gymnasium, which would bring a larger portion of the community together in a single location, in order to facilitate more personal connections between inhabitants of various areas (Aquilino 6). With the amount of drug warfare that is present in favelas, particularly in Rio, it is necessary to attempt a variety of solutions in order to keep the violence at bay and create positive connections between neighborhoods.
Whether implementing infrastructural changes in informal settlements will truly improve the lives of the inhabitants enough to create a change from informal to formal is unknown. It may not even be possible given the additive nature of the growth of informal settlements. It also may not be entirely desirable for those who have been living for so long without the same amount of regulation as their counterparts in the formal city. While it is certainly necessary to improve the living conditions for the favela dwellers like those in Rocinha, there needs to be a collaboration between highly organized infrastructure and the unplanned nature of the settlements in order for projects to be successful.

Defining the Favela

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For a long time it has been the case that many maps of cities in Brazil and Latin America have not accounted accurate street representations of favelas for the reason that the positioning of roads and homes changes frequently due to the flexible nature of these neighborhoods. For this reason many favelas that are densely populated simply appeared as blanks within the maps of many cities. However, with the advent of technology such as satellite imaging and street views  have allowed for onsite pictures to be taken of these neighborhoods and as a result has connected them with the larger city context in a way never before seen. Furthermore, it has put into perspective the physical and social inequalities that exist in many of these cities.

Obtaining photographs and any sort of information from these neighborhoods as a Daniela Fabricius states, “once required bureaucratic privileges” [1] for the reason that the cities organization was guarded information mostly kept away from the public. By looking at many satellite images of the urban organization of these cities one begins to understand the ruptures that exist in the urban fabric and the almost cell like growth of the favelas. The ability to then have public access to the conditions of how these people live have allowed for a public outcry not only from Brazilians but also from foreigners who demand a better representation of these individuals. Recording how many individuals live within these neighborhoods is at the heart of governmental representation but even this sometimes fails as government officials fluctuate in the actual population of the same sectors and differentiate with the population claimed by the inhabitants themselves. As a result many favela run initiatives have been created in order to create correct estimates of population. The favela of Mare for example, “ has set up its own information gathering center, which takes unofficial but accurate census data of the neighborhood” [1]  These initiatives not only hold power because they present clearer and more official forms of data but also because they are initiatives created by the neighborhood itself thus empowering the community.

A favela is hard to define because while the creation of informal settlements is the “root” of it many times city planned neighborhoods develop into “favela like” areas.  Some of the favela’s in Rio de Janeiro are quite old, Providencia for example is 100 years old and it is considered one of Rio’s first favela. Favela’s began to grow on hilltops separated in many cases from the rest of the city by the verticality of the topography in which they grew. Made up of a population of rural newcomers the rural culture sometimes found in these settlements also contrasted with the urban culture of the city “below”. Interestingly enough, when the favelas began spreading and touching with the confines of the city the isolation felt within these neighborhoods was still the same. Crime, poverty, and disease were still adjectives associated with these areas of the city and as a result these citizens became even further marginalized from society.

The term informal or favela is in a sense an “economic and sociological description of cities.” However, what is often forgotten is that favelas are a result of modern conditions. They are not creations of a less civilized way of life instead it is a response to the modern achievements and affluent way of life of those in Brazil and the rest of the world. Furthermore, the unique culture of these places should not be forgotten because they are part of human adaption in the process. Like the many cultural fruits that came from many informal situations in Europe, Asia, North America these are creating their own fruits that will result in a culture very much a port of modern times.

 

  1. Aquilino, Marie J, “Beyond Shelter Architecture and Human Dignity” (Metropolis; July/August 2011, Vol. 31 Issue 1) p88-89

The Innovative Approach

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The issues surrounding slum clearing can be summed up in the following quote from Slumlifting; “Approaches that involve large-scale, rapid change have razed slums, relocated populations,and infused poverty zones with cash through major public works, but have failed to eradicate the problem precisely because complex systems such as cities can only absorb so much change at one time.”(1)

Time has shown us countless times that simply clearing slums results in an infinite number of new problems. Due to this, the only clear solution to aid those living in slums is to empower those in slums, infiltrate the slums, learn from the slums, and ultimately design a networked solution to these discoveries found in the process.

An issue with planning for these slums is the fact that they, until recently are somewhat hidden from public eye. This has begun to change with the advent of Google Earth and even more recently the designation of Rio de Janeiro as the site for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Both of these events are in a sense an instigator to, as highlighted previously, find a networked solution to the problems associated with slums.

The Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (SlumLab) toolbox, which was designed by Urban Think Tank (UTT) was devised to unpack these issues, sifting through them addressing problems encompassing five themes: “transportation infrastructure, water and sanitation, density and verticality, slum morphology, and local footprints/efficiency.”(1)

It is quite obvious that the categories established by UTT to tackle are, to put it bluntly, things we take for granted, however the solutions to these problems are rather innovative. For instance the Metrocable transit system for the favela San Augustin in Caracas carries patrons 1.3 miles down the hillside to connect with the cities metro system.(1) This solution not only connects the favela with the rest of the city in an energy-efficient, low cost way, but does so without the interruption of the densely populated area below it.

Other solutions solve even larger problems on the list such as water and sanitation through a network of individual rainwater harvesting; water can be collected during the rainy season and stored for use during the dry season. This solution is extremely valuable as water in Caracas now costs more than gasoline.(1) But what about Sanitation? Lack of proper sanitation causes a plethora of disease based issues. One solution, dry toilets are an exceptional answer to this. These toilets have been tested in Caracas and are awaiting to be approved by the government.(1)

It was only until recently that favelas have gained electricity, but this electricity isn’t typically from the grid, at least in a legal way, instead those living in the slums steal electricity by tapping into power lines etc. This process of tying into the grid is not only used for electricity, it is also used for water, the term for the illegal connections made to the grid is called Gatos, meaning “Cats”.(2) Interestingly enough, UTT is researching ways to change this, allowing those living in favelas to get their electricity by cheap legal means, that being using the common favela roof material corrugated metal as a solar panel.(1)

Favelas are a postmodern construction, thus they need new creative ways of solving their issues.(2) That said, with roughly 1/3 of the worlds population living in slums, a shift in the type of design by professionals will come about, this as illustrated above, has already become underway.

1) Slumlifting by Alfredo Brillembourg of Urban Think Tank

2) Resisting Representation by Daniela Fabricius