Urban-Think Tank’s project, the Metro Cable of San Agustín in Caracas, was selected as one of eleven projects featured in the exhibition, <a href="http://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1061?locale=en">Small Scale, Big Change</a> at MoMA in 2010. The featured work came from five continents, all responding to localized needs in under-served communities. These pragmatic solutions demonstrate how architecture can serve the greater needs of society.
In 2003, U-TT proposed to build a cable-car system linking San Agustín, an informal settlement with approximately 40,000 residents, to the formal city below. The plan followed the philosophy of urban acupuncture, where minimalist and sensitive interventions create a major impact. Developed after numerous site surveys, community workshops, and consultation with international experts, the plan also called for for “plug-in” buildings—structures attached to each station that would provide housing, cultural, and recreational programs. The completed cable car line, with five stations, opened in 2010. The system has proven to be extremely popular and affordable, moving up to 1,200 people per hour.
Selected Press Coverage
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/arts/design/15change.html?_r=0">“Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement,” New York Times, 2010</a>
<a href="https://www.dwell.com/article/momas-small-scale-big-change-6a501e50">“MoMA’s Small Scale, Big Change,” Dwell Magazine, 2010</a>
<a href="http://www.architectural-review.com/rethink/new-york-usa-the-museum-of-modern-art-reveals-its-sensitive-side/8607205.fullarticle">“The Museum of Modern Art reveals its sensitive side,” The Architectural Review, 2010</a>

MoMa

Small Scale, Big Change

Exhibitions

U-TT’s Vertical Gym prototype was featured as one of numerous global design projects in the show, <a href="https://www.designother90.org/">Design with the Other 90%: CITIES</a> organized by the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The Vertical Gym was selected as an example of how architecture can address complex issues arising from the unprecedented growth of informal settlements in emerging and developing economies. By building upward in dense environments, the Vertical Gym provides provides under-served communities with additional recreation space. The exhibition was hosted in the United Nations headquarters, offering an ideal setting to examine these complex issues and connect with powerful and influential stakeholders.

Smithsonian

Design with the Other 90%

Urban-Think Tank was selected as one of five architectural offices to develop a vision for the future of mobility in cities. The team focused on Säo Paulo, looking critically at existing infrastructure and transportation patterns in order to imagine future products and processes.
Since the 1930s, Brazilian government investment has focused on the growth of extensive automobile infrastructure, a trend that has diminished investment in alternative modes of mass transit, and resulted in current issues of congestion and infrastructure limitations. This is a key component of the larger, asymmetrical urbanization process. Population density in parts of the central region of the city have diminished, while the urbanization of peripheral areas, especially in the sprawling gated communities and favelas, has exploded. As a consequence, the majority of people within São Paulo face both social and territorial immobility. Innovative new modes and pathways of notion are needed to make São Paulo an accessible and inclusive city for all of its inhabitants.
The resulting proposal, titled, “Urban Parangolé” liberates spaces of the contemporary city, engaging a fully three-dimensional field of mobility. Through the strata of different elevations and temporal flux, city planners introduce new pathways and services that allow São Paulo to support a swider variety of programs and typologies. Technology and democratic planning processes increase accessibility and self-determined public space. Urban Parangolé ultimately proposes the creation of networked villages that stitch together a fragmented city at a human scale.
Selected Press
<a href="https://www.designboom.com/architecture/urban-think-tank-urban-parangole-the-mobile-village-2/">“Urban Parangolé the Mobile Village,” DesignBoom, 2012</a>
<a href="http://audi-urban-future-initiative.com/blog/urbanthink-tank">“Urban-Think Tank’s Research on São Paulo,” Audi Urban Future, 2012</a>
<a href="http://audi-urban-future-initiative.com/blog/urbanthink-tank">“The Audi Urban Future Award 2012,” Domus, 2012</a>
<a href="https://www.bauwelt.de/dl/733879/bw_2012_45_0008-0013.pdf">“Audi Urban Future Award,” Bauwelt, 2012</a>

Audi Urban Future Award

Urban Parangolé

Urban-Think Tank was commissioned for The Institute Effect program in "Close, Closer", the 3rd edition of the Lisbon Arquitecture Triennale 2013. The installation, “Architecture at 24 Frames per Second,” took the form of a 48-hour performance and screening, focusing on moving images and audio as uniquely powerful means to communicate and analyse space making.
The core component of the installation was a multi-media performance, bringing together live music, video remixes (VJ-ing), and spoken-word poetry. Additional photographic and archival video components explore the relationship between visual media and architecture. Godard once defined cinema as “truth 24 frames per second”. U-TT contends that modern day architects, who wish to truthfully understand and work within reality, must adopt cinema as both a product and process. The institute seeks to inspire a new generation of urban space-makers to treat video as an invaluable tool.

Location	Trienal de Lisboa
Year	2013
Curator	Beatrice Galilee with Dani Admiss
Exhibition Design	Alfredo Brillembourg, Daniel Schwartz, and Martin Andersson
Music	Martin Andersson and Fernando Molina
Video	Daniel Schwartz and Markus Kneer
Spoken Word	Alfredo Brillembourg, Daniel Schwartz, Markus Kneer, Alexis Kalagas

Architecture at 24 Frames per Second

Trienal de Lisboa