The MOM Group

The MOM Group (Morar de Outras Maneiras, or, living in other ways) is a research
group affiliated with Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological
Development (CNPq). Created in 2004, the MOM group is housed at the Federal
University of Minas Gerais' School for Architecture. Its central goal is to analyze the
processes of housing production, of their urban environment, and other daily spaces;
its central principles lie in individual and collective autonomy of residents and
builders, the social economy, and controlled processes of environmental impact.
MOM's research is aimed toward people that, today, either produce informal housing
arrangements, with all the scarcity of financial, technical, and legal resources that
comes along with this process, or that submit them selves to formal endeavors in
which they have little decision-making power.