Urban poverty is often perpetuated because it exists on the margins of cities – either geographically or within popular consciousness. But architecture and urban design have the potential to redistribute resources and draw attention to neglected zones. As an early collaborative project with the Inter-American Development Bank, U-TT designed a new city hall and civic center for Mar del Plata, situating it within one of the city’s poorest areas.
Conceived with flexible, mixed use programming in mind, the project comprises a four hectare park and aproximately 8,000 m2 of office, commercial, and civic space. By transplanting public facilities into an underserved community and providing incentives for a diverse population to use the programs and amenities on offer, the project seeks to catalyze a more egalitarian future for the city as a whole.

Centro Civico

Buildings

Well-designed social infrastructure has the potential to not only bring important services and opportunities to deprived areas, but also act as a powerful catalyst for future urban development. Paraisópolis is located in southwest São Paulo, adjacent to Morumbi, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. Despite challenging topography and recurrent,dangerous mudslides in periods of heavy rainfall, approximately 80,000 people now live on the territory in a dense, informal settlement covering less than one square kilometer.
While mapping the area and interviewing residents, U-TT learned of a local music organization hoping to build a new practice and performance center. Inspired by this story, U-TT developed a proposal that would transform an inaccessible void within the dense fabric, which had been cleared of homes after a severe mudslide, into a productive and dynamic community hub.
The design centers on a music and dance school in the lower zone, which stacks diverse programs to maximize site potential. These include an open theater, performance hall, practice and rehearsal spaces, studios, and classrooms. The other key component is a new terraced landscape, which in addition to stabilizing the sloped terrain and preventing further erosion, will transform Grotão into a natural arena, encouraging diverse community participation, and re-establishing connections through the site to the wider neighborhood. In this way, the project will expand cultural programs into the community, while forming a new network that serves youth from all levels of society. The municipal government soon signed on to the project, and planned new social housing facilities nearby for residents currently living precariously on the site. Construction began in 2014 and is estimated to be completed by the end of 2016.

Fábrica de Cultura: Grotão

In the hillside barrios of Caracas, many residents lack clean water and sanitation, with communities often waiting years for the state to install these systems. Developed during the Caracas Case program, the Dry Toilet is a synthesis of infrastructure and design. Built as a prototype in the barrio of La Vega, the non-flushing toilet conserves water and establishes an off-grid sewage and sanitation system that residents can maintain themselves. Diverting liquid and solid waste, the design prevents groundwater contamination and soil erosion, and contributes fertilizer for small-scale agriculture. The Dry Toilet addresses real needs quickly, affordably, and with an approach that can be replicated on a massive scale.

Dry Toilet

The modernist ideas that dominated 20th century planning too often favored “tabula rasa” approaches to urban renewal, which were socially destructive and failed to accommodate dynamic growth. The Dutch municipality of Hoograven is a prime example of this phenomenon. There, local leaders invited U-TT to develop an integrated revitalization strategy for restoring and retrofitting the deteriorating post-war blocks that housed a predominantly North African immigrant community, as well as introduce new mixed-use social infrastructure.
U-TT proposed an array of projects focused on accommodating increased density, cultural-hybridity, and street-level informality. The designs include kasbah-inspired housing, multifunctional culture hubs, and parasitic rehabilitative interventions that plug-in to the existing urban fabric through a flexible, modular system. Clustered into “hot spots”, the intention was that these accupunctural projects would serve collectively as a catalyst for responsible growth, as well as contribute to the improved integration of marginalized immigrant groups.

Location	Utrecht, Holland
Year	2010
Client	Utrecht Manifest, City of Utrecht, Harm Scheltern
Project Architects	Michael Contento, Lindsey Sherman
Design Team	Zachary Aders, Rajiv Fernandez, Carlos Guimaraes, Emily Johnson, Lea Rufenacht, Allison Schwartz
Status	Proposed