Urban Morphology, Environmental Perfornances and Social Inclusion via IMM® The case study of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

IMM, Integrated Modification Methodology, is a multi-stage, iterative process, applied to urban complex systems, for improving the metabolism of the city as well as its energy performance. The method has been depicted through prior publications by the authors; hence, the current paper solely focuses on one stage of the multi-stage IMM method. Due to the facts that most future growth in urban areas will occur in developing countries and its relative few megacities, where will live 5% of earth population, the study wish to present a case study of megacity of Rio de Janeiro. Despite the GDP growth by roughly 50 percent in real terms over the last decade about 20 per cent of the city’s population lives in informal settlements known as Favelas. These slum areas have very limited access to public services and amenities. Electricity distribution is perhaps an exception, but often informally accessed. Alike great number of cities around the world; the city of Rio is experiencing preponderance growth in its margin which has been amplified since 1950s. More accurately, the municipality of Rio de Janeiro has added 3.9 million residents since then; while the suburbs and exurbs have added 4.8 million. The authors intended to examine how a local design area located in the dense core of Rio (Porto Maravilha) can affect transformation of the entire CAS (the city of Rio de Janeiro) toward more sustainable development some city’s main concerns, mitigating marginal growth, low performances and a growing pollution as promoting social inclusion and a more livable environment.