In the 1990s, the military began to use the acronym V.U.C.A. (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) to describe the dynamic and incredibly complex nature of modern warfare. Since then, the only constant has been an ever-increasing degree of complexity. Complex Buildings, the new series of a+t magazine, identifies different conditions of complexity within architecture. Through classic and contemporary projects grouped into four blocks—Generators, Linkers, Mixers and Storytellers—a+t positions complexity as a positive concept in the design process. The buildings selected are not evidently complex but essentially complex. For Urban-Think Tank’s contribution, we explored the idea of designing for complexity through a focus on our two ‘Fábrica de Cultura’ projects in Barranquilla, Colombia, and São Paulo, Brazil.

Urban-Think Tank’s Fall 2016 ‘Port of Havana’ design studio at ETH Zürich aimed to propose sustainable architectural solutions for the transformation of the city’s recently decommissioned harbor. Currently lacking a comprehensive development plan, the port and its surrounds provided an ideal ‘classroom’ to practice the Chair’s alternative research and design methodology. Amidst the vast and varied layers of a diverse and rapidly changing city, our on-the-ground process was simple: look, observe, listen, ask, absorb, and understand. Together with local architecture students from the Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría (CUJAE), we conducted a series of mapping and fieldwork exercises around the port, exploring disconnected neighborhoods and empty industrial sites. Along the way, we met locals and were often invited into their homes, cataloging personal histories and visions for the future of their city. From our vantage point in the present, we analyzed the historic context, and developed a contemporary urban design to positively affect the lives of the city’s inhabitants.

Of Process (Ground Up 6)

‘Teaching the City: Port of Havana’

Publications

Since 2014, CARTHA has provided a platform for critical thinking on architecture and society. Founded by an international team of architects and designers, it aims to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical approaches to contemporary architecture. Each year, CARTHA initiates research and publishes four issues on a topic in its online magazine, which are then brought together in an annual book. In 2016, CARTHA collaborated with the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Titled Making Heimat: Germany, Arrival Country, the pavilion explored the challenges and potential the recent influx of refugees to Germany has posed for architecture and urban design, and contributions to this volume further reflect on this topic. Alongside ‘Bringing it All Back Home’, CARTHA on Making Heimat includes essays from Arno Brandlhuber and Marina Otero Verzier, as well as interviews with Iverna McGowan of Amnesty International, David Harvey, Saskia Sassen, and Giovanna Borasi from the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

CARTHA on Making Heimat

‘Bringing it All Back Home’

While many of its traditional elements, such as roads and utilities, do not change, urban infrastructure is undergoing a fascinating and necessary transformation in the wake of new information and communication technologies. This volume brings together many of the most important new voices in the fields impacting modern urban infrastructure to explore this revolutionary change. Increasingly, it is connective systems rather than built forms that bind a city together. Intelligent infrastructure confers upon a city previously unimagined levels of adaptability. Beginning with a consideration of invisible networks—the sociohistorical systems that contribute to and constitute urbanity—the essays collected here examine a variety of actual tools, from handheld devices to autonomous vehicles, within a fully networked built environment: the smart city. Intelligent Infrastructure argues that knowledge of both the visible and invisible components—information, energy, sustainability, transportation, housing, and social practices—are critical to understanding the urban environment.

Title	Complex Buildings: Generators, Linkers, Mixers & Storytellers (a+t 48)
Authors	Alfredo Brillembourg, Hubert Klumpner, Alexis Kalagas & Diego Ceresuela
Release	June 2017
Editor	Aurora Fernández Per
Publisher	a+t Architecture Publishers
Pages	168

‘A Building is Not a Butterfly: Culture and Complexity’

Complex Buildings: Generators, Linkers, Mixers & Storytellers (a+t 48)