PExURB is a research group based at the Institute of Architecture and Urbanism (IAU-USP), in the municipality of São Carlos, articulated in national-wide network with other public universities in the five macro-regions of Brazil through LEU (portuguese acronym for Urbanistics Experiences Laboratory). It is directly linked to undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Architecture and Urbanism at IAU-USP and aims to create opportunities for the public university to collaborate in building better cities.
The group is structured around the three pillars of the Brazilian public university: teach, research; extension – in an experimental environment that envisages the capillarization of university actions in the community through a critical, non-mechanical and based on reflection way, in line with the current policies of the Universidade de São Paulo and the Regiment of the IAU-USP.
The PExURB group aims to contribute to the area of knowledge of architecture and urbanism by encouraging critical practices that simultaneously promote the learning of its student members and the transformation of the reality of Brazilian cities through actions with the community.