Mind the Step is an award-winning initiative from Cidade Ativa that raises awareness about the role of public staircases (usually abandoned, degraded and unsafe) and challenges its uses through physical interventions. The project seeks the opportunity of revealing the potential that collaborative interventions have on transforming staircases, allowing these places to be reintegrated into the pedestrian mobility network and to be used as public spaces for people to gather, for leisure and recreation. The initiative was built based on a pilot project carried out in 2014-15 in São Paulo (Brazil) and in 2018 had its 5th action developed.

Mind the Step focus on public spaces transformation (staircases) to promote access for all (specially for the most vulnerable users, such as women, children and elders) through community participatory processes of design and implementation (SDG Goal 11, Targets 11.3 and 11.7); promotion of active mobility (pedestrian mobility) as means of reducing emissions and improving health and wellbeing, and at the same promoting road safety through improved routes and crossings (SDG Goal 3, Targets 3.6).

The project raises awareness about the role of public staircases in São Paulo (Brazil) and in a context of limited resources, the team challenged the usual ways of researching, designing, and building a public space renovation project. Thus, a new process of continuous engagement with users has been designed: from interviews to hands-on workshops for the implementation of the improvements, the team makes participation a priority – and it is one of the pillars of the organization today. One of the initiative results is the dissemination of methods learned and refined throughout the actions developed in the many stairways of the city, allowing future projects to be led by any citizen in any community. The pilot project won the ‘Urban Urge Award – Emerge Prize’ and an honourable mention from ‘Prêmio Mobilidade Minuto - IVM’ in 2014 which triggered the renovation process on the staircase that nowadays is led by a community association called Escadaria Viva.

Since then, other four editions of the initiative took place, having diverse contexts and being supported by a range of stakeholders through different partnership models. The last staircase intervention took place in Jardim Nakamura in 2018 and was developed with the support of HealthBridge Foundation of Canada through an UN-Habitat’s Global Public Space Programme grant.

This last action proposal was co-designed with local school students’ using Minecraft workshops and considered demands and ideas collected through engagement activities with the neighbourhood population. The implementation workshop relied on important stakeholders collaboration and resulted in graffiti murals, wooden and tire-benches, a picnic table, a blackboard and a community library and maintenance works and road safety signage by the local government authority.

The initiative is led by Cidade Ativa, a social organization conceived out of the urgency to create more inclusive, resilient and healthy cities. We seek to encourage more active behaviours that are focused not only on research and transformation of the landscape, but also on changing people.

Since 2014 Mind the Step has involved numerous stakeholders (neighbourhood community, school community) and made partnerships with architecture and design professionals and local artists. It received invaluable support from international organizations (IVM, HealthBridge, UN-Habitat), private companies (Brookfield Inc., Akzo Nobel and GEDI) and the local government authorities. Cidade Ativa’s team coordinates all activities for stakeholders participation and creates appropriate methods and tools for engagement, including: meetings, events with games and interactive tools, audits and questionnaires, co-design workshops, and hands-on activities during physical interventions. The initiative has received support from over 1000 participants and volunteers workforce over the last years.

The initiative has started with a proposed methodology for transforming staircases through community led implementation. Thus, it started by creating before and after data collection and engagement activities in all the steps provide continuous monitoring mechanisms and provide evidence for future interventions.
The steps proposed (and improved during the five actions developed since 2014) included (but were not limited to):

(1) Identifying a potential location and mapping stakeholders

(2) Data collection: people moving counts; stationary activities; safety, comfort, demands and visions for the space transformation (through interviews);

(3) Community engagement workshops: focused on more qualitative data, through interactive and ludic activities,

(4) Design proposal and co-design workshops/validation activities: based on data collected in the earlier stages, the preliminary design proposal is presented, co-designed and then validated with all stakeholders: local community, students, local government authorities, among others;

(5) Final design proposal and budgeting: detailed design, phasing of interventions, attribution of responsibilities among stakeholders and resources allocation (or fundraising with external sponsors);

(6) Intervention workshop: coordination of activities, volunteers and transformation of the staircase (focused on paint, urban furniture, planters/drainage/gardening). Depending on the case, structural changes implemented by the local government authority were implemented before or after this phase (lighting, road safety signage/crosswalks, maintenance etc).

(7) Post-intervention data collection: replication of earlier stages of data collection (2) for a before and after analysis.

(8) Report/summary/presentation consolidation with all stages, stakeholders and data collected.
Considering the last action at Jardim Nakamura, the project was divided into three different strategies, each one of them with their expected Outcomes.

For Strategy 1: Community Engagement it was considered the following Outcomes:
- Increased number of community members participating in public space design process;
- Increased number of women, children, people living with disabilities participating;
- Increased participation of community public space development;

As for Strategy 2: Infrastructure changes, the Outcomes were:
- Increased number of public space improvements that could be applied to other public space settings;
- Increased access to public spaces by priority populations (low-income; women; children; youth; older persons; persons living with disabilities);
- Increased number of awareness and strategies to maintain public spaces;

Finally, for Strategy 3: Capacity Building, the Outcomes were:
- Increased capacity among decision-makers to develop and maintain staircase;
- Increased awareness among decision-makers that public spaces are an important policy issue;

The positive impacts of the project can be measured in many ways (but not limited to):

(1) Almost 4000 people use the five renovated staircases every day;

(2) In all actions the before and after data collection indicated an increase of stationary activities, like kids playing, people seating in benches (special increase in women and elders);

(3) Interviews indicated better overall levels of satisfaction considering the before and after intervention, with highlights to the safety and comfort feeling of all users;

(4) The intensive participatory processes undertaken in all stages of the initiative implementation engaged communities and diverse range of stakeholders. These keep looking after the renovated staircases or demand from local government authorities maintenance actions to keep the public spaces clean and safe.

(5) All initiative methodology is open and free for use by accessing the leading organization website (Cidade Ativa) and can be replicated in varied contexts.

(6) Careful before and after data collection through interviews, people moving count’s, stationary activities (among other methodologies) create evidence for future interventions and inform the results (and needed changes in the methodology);

Long term results in the local government authorities creating awareness and investing resources for enhancing and maintaining public spaces and empowering communities to demand, monitor and participate in these improvements.


The initiative was successful from its start for many reasons, including:

(1) Its pioneering character on addressing staircases, a very numerous but forgotten public spaces in São Paulo. Although stairs are scattered throughout the city, linking major neighborhoods and main streets, when the initiative was launched, there was no significant work available on this subject, not even a reliable database with the location of staircases and their features. Therefore, an important first step into the project was to provide access to this information, which resulted on a collaborative mapping tool.

(2) the engagement process and open methodology proposal of community led public spaces transformations. One of the initiative results is the dissemination of methods learned and refined throughout the actions developed in the many stairways of the city, allowing future projects to be led by any citizen in any community.

(3) and the recognition of the Urban Urge Emerge Prize received in its earlier stages of the pilot project in 2014. The uniqueness of the transformations and also attracted media, sponsors and volunteers for the project implementations that followed the initial ones. From this initial recognition, Mind the Step also won a IVM (Instituto Cidade em Movimento) Prize (Prêmio Mobilidade Minuto) in late 2014. That led in 2015 to a established a partnership between IVM and Cidade Ativa for the Jardim ngela Mind the Step action that took place in 2015-16. It was further followed by a private investment in a staircase transformation (Rua Cotoxó) and a grant received by Instituto Fenômenos (for transforming a staircase in Ermelino Matarazzo). The 2018 grant received from UN Habitat Global Public Spaces Programme through a partnership with HealthBridge Foundation of Canada consolidated the initiative recognition as a good practice for public spaces transformation.

In late 2018 the first staircase transformed by Cidade Ativa was received further intervention by a partnership with a local neighbourhood association created to look after the staircase (Escadaria Viva) and received investments from private companies. With that, the initial vision of the having autonomous community led proposed interventions through the city started to be shaped.

Mind the Step constraints include limited resources for implementing structural changes in the staircases and the varied property ownership and maintenance responsibilities of the staircases (mostly public land, but scattered in different departments: local government authorities, transport authorities etc).

Public spaces are extremely relevant for cities and urban settlements to become more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. By focusing on community-led interventions and by creating engagement opportunities that include the most vulnerable users (women, children and elders) the results of the intervention can better address their most urgent needs: basic maintenance and litter collection, public lighting for improved safety, play spaces for children and benches and tables for incentivizing stationary activities. By having more users at the space in different times of the day, the safety feeling and monitoring of the space are increased by local users, creating a better environment for the whole community.

The next steps for the Mind the Step initiative can include further sensibilization of local government authorities for staircases conservation and improvements, as well as enhanced engagement with communities in this actions, empowering local ‘champions’ to lead their own actions.

Cidade Ativa also has a vision to scale the initiative by receiving medium-term (2 years or more) resources for implementing simultaneous interventions in 5-10 staircases. By focusing this action in one neighbourhood this initiative can potentially show the greater impact of public spaces / pedestrian mobility network interventions and create evidence for future bigger scale interventions.

Mind the Step creates awareness on the importance of public spaces and create opportunities for communities to be involved in the transformation of its neighbourhoods. Through the proposed interventions, Cidade Ativa and its many partnerships and local stakeholders bring new opportunities to improve its local staircases, making it safer for individuals who use them during their daily commute and, therefore, enhancing local accessibility. Safety is a especially sensitive issue to women, who avoid or feel very insecure when using the space after dawn. Moreover, due to the lack of public spaces and play areas in many vulnerable neighbourhoods in São Paulo, the project aimed at creating a quality space for stationary activities (siting, playing), which will address the needs and dreams of those engaged in the process. Youth involved in the initiative are mostly students from the public schools, but also some who live by the staircases or in its surroundings. They contributed to the proposal by analysing the space, co-designing solutions (through interactive artistic activities, with the help of Minecraft), by engaging in the outdoor activities that took place in the staircase and also during the project implementation (helping in many of the needed activities). Their main demands are usually related to play spaces (playgrounds, sliders), urban furniture (tables and benches) that could support meeting friends and enjoying the time in the staircase. Additional improvements include murals and walls paintings, making it more liveable and appealing, as well as solutions for rainwater and sewage drainage by building new planters..

Besides community engagement in the co-design and validation steps, the effective inclusion of neighbourhood ‘champions’ in the process (e.g. local artists groups and community leaders) made their participation meaningful inside the staircase renovation activities. At the same time, their connection to different stakeholders during the process also triggered new opportunities for the community members (through other groups support and other initiatives being aware of the neighbourhood needs and potentials).

Lastly, the project addresses sustainability and environmental issues by encouraging walking. Investments in pedestrian infrastructure (sidewalks, crossings, public spaces and, in this case, staircases) and in access to public transport recognize the value and the need for more active commutes, which can help reduce greenhouse gases emissions and pollution in the city.

The initiative has been achieving its goal to create safe, comfortable and fun pedestrian spaces for the people who live by the five staircases renovated so far. The result of our work has been a place where more residents are interested and able to stay and it has created an important community gathering place in the neighbourhood. By building on existing relationships, we were able to garner significant community in-kind contributions. It is our wish to continue this important work in the neighbourhood and continue to foster our relationships with both the community and the local government authorities.

Cidade Ativa: https://cidadeativa.org/en/home-en/

Mind the Step Initiative: https://cidadeativa.org/en/iniciativa/mind-the-step/

Mind the Step - Urban Urge Emerge Prize (2014): https://www.urbanurge.org/urge-awards-winners?lightbox=imagent4

Mind the Step - Jardim Nakamura (2018) action: https://cidadeativa.org/en/iniciativa/mind-the-step/mind-the-step-jardim-nakamura/

Mind the Step - Jardim Nakamura - Summary Report (2018): https://cidadeativa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CidadeAtiva_MindStep-JardimNakamura_report.pdf