Architecture Biennale 2012

Torre David / Gran Horizonte

Interview with Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner (Urban-Think Tank) about their contribution „Torre David / Gran Horizonte“ (Urban-Think Tank together with Justin McGuirk) – awarded with The Golden Lion for the Best Project of the International Exhibition „Common Ground“.

Artikel zur Ausstellung:
urban think tank iwan baan win golden lion at venice biennale

link zu Urban Think Tank:
www.u-tt.com

Torre David
from Urban-Think Tank

Torre David, a 45-story office tower in Caracas designed by the distinguished Venezuelan architect Enrique Gómez, was almost complete when it was abandoned following the death of its developer, David Brillembourg, in 1993 and the collapse of the Venezuelan economy in 1994.

Today, it is the improvised home of a community of more than 750 families, living in an extra-legal and tenuous occupation that some have called a vertical slum. Urban-Think Tank, spent a year studying the physical and social organization of this ruin-turned-home. Where some only see a failed development project, U-TT has conceived it as a laboratory for the study of the informal. In their “Torre David / Grand Horizonte” exhibit and in their forthcoming book, Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities, the architects lay out their vision for practical, sustainable interventions in Torre David and similar informal settlements around the world. They argue that the future of urban development lies in collaboration among architects, private enterprise, and the global population of slum-dwellers.

This film is a call to arms to architects and everyone–to see in the informal settlements of the world a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of putting design in the service of a more equitable and sustainable future.