Intervening in a precarious settlement means recognizing their territorial pre-existences, potential and limitations. Therefore, in addition to site-specific issues, designing in such context means considering local residents' integration and mobility possibilities with the rest of the metropolis. The South Zone of the city of São Paulo, where Cantinho do Céu Complex is located, has undergone an intense transformation process over the last few decades. The local landscape, once characterized by fountainhead areas, has significantly changed, and is now characterized, with rare exceptions, by irregular occupations with high density rates, absence of public spaces and equipment as well as lack of urban infrastructure. Within such context, developed from studies and guidelines formulated by the Municipal Secretariat of Housing in conjunction with the District Attorney's Office, a urbanization project for informal settlements and occupations that make up the Cantinho do Céu Complex has been developed as an alternative to a public civil action which stipulated the evacuation of the area. Faced with the challenge of intervening in this consolidated, densely occupied, environmentally fragile area, with geotechnical risk and large territorial limits and with direct access to the Billings reservoir, apart from aggravating the lack of basic sanitation, new project trials were required. Chances of intervention that aimed to supply their infrastructure deficits, qualify and integrate them into town and reveal the importance of collective and public space for the local population would be indispensable.