The “Yonkers Sports and Event Center” project envisions the transformation of derelict urban space into a multi-purpose sports and recreation facility. Working in partnership with The Armory Foundation’s President, Norbert Sander (winner of the 1974 NYC Marathon), the facility would be situated above the Kawasaki NYC Subway Factory in Yonkers New York and would be designed to reprogram 13’000 square meters.

The center would include a 5,000-to-6,000-seat track and field complex and flexible spaces. Its 200-meter hydraulic indoor track could be used as either a banked track or flat track. An additional removable court would host high school basketball and volleyball games, high school wrestling competitions, collegiate tournaments, as well as concerts, exhibitions and conventions along its flexible spaces.

With an expectation to attract approximately 100,000 visitors annually, the center holds the potential to simultaneously function as a community hub, fostering inter-cultural interaction for an already diverse neighborhood through sport.

From its beginnings in Caracas, Venezuela, Urban-Think Tank has always been interested in operating at the peripheries, including where art, architecture, and other socially engaged disciplines meet. As a diverse team of architects, designers, writers, researchers, and artists now based within ETH Zürich, but pursuing projects throughout Latin America, Africa, and Europe, we seek to draw attention and resources to places and thinking that support a more diverse and equitable city.

Having worked for four years within Cape Town’s informal settlements, our theatrical production ‘Holy Contract’, a 2016 collaboration with the non-profit group Theatre4Change staged as part of the Cape Town Fringe Festival, was the result of real stories that emerged through interactions with residents in the township of Khayelitsha. We approach theater as an alternative means of making and activating city spaces, and ‘Holy Contract’ was conceived as a form of artistic activism, intended as the first step towards building a new theater for the community.

Residents are currently rehearsing and performing in a small, self-built ‘shack theater’—the Makukhanye Art Room. Though modest, the venue is an increasingly important gathering space for dramatic productions, dance recitals, educational workshops, mentorship programs and community meetings. Despite its obvious deficiencies, it provides for an ever-growing audience and network of actors, musicians, dancers, writers, directors, and artists based in Khayelitsha, who find it difficult to access the cultural infrastructure that otherwise exists in Cape Town’s city center.

Initiated via a series of workshops run at the Makukhanye Art Room with Theatre4Change, and rehearsed in the same space, the production of ‘Holy Contract’ provided us with a behind-the-scenes perspective on the physical requirements for a new theater, in particular the need for a larger, safer, and more controllable space. A better-equipped and flexible facility has the potential to greatly expand the impact of the programs already underway, as well as improve access to the arts for all the residents of Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest informal settlement.

Our vision for a new theater and arts complex includes a 250-seat multipurpose theater space, a 100-seat performance pavilion, as well as integrated market stalls, offices, and rehearsal rooms. The lightweight, low-cost design seeks to remain sensitive to the surrounding area, while at the same time offering a visible symbol of hope and ambition for the community. With our fundraising campaign launched at the Schauspielhaus Zürich at the end of March, we aim to reach our total goal of 350,000 CHF within one year.

Makukhanye Shack Theater

Buildings

San Patrignano in central Italy, is a leading addiction rehabilitation center. The 1,300 residents live and work together in a farming and crafts community, sharing facilities and learning artisanal skills. The fast pace at which the community grew has grown in its 40 years, has created a housing shortage and micro-urbanism predominated by unregulated development.

The housing project that U-TT is designing in conjunction with organizational and community leaders will be the first step toward a reorganization of the village, envisioned as a self-sustainable campus. With 2,400 m2 and two floors, the building will host more than 200 residents divided into 18 semi-independent residential units that share entrances and facilities. The structure sits on top of a hill and is oriented to take advantage of stunning views surrounding the site, while also providing a protected communal space in the courtyard.

The layout reflects the social organization of the community, striving to provide both the privacy and security that residents need, along with encouraging collective and shared social spaces. A large, semi-transparent roof connects three different volumes to create sheltered balconies on the corners for urban agriculture. The wooden structure will be largely pre-assembled in a factory. The simplicity of the construction ensures economy, rapidity, and allows the residents to customize the finishing touches themselves, putting into practice the skills taught at the center.

Sanpa Housing

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	Yonkers, New York
Year	2016 - Ongoing
Client	The Armory Foundation
Leads	Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner
Coordinator	Diego Ceresuela
Core Team	Marcel Aubert, Steve Dijkhuizen, Isabella Hübsch, Christina Akesson

Yonkers Sports and Event Centre