The work of Urban-Think Tank has centered on the dynamic cities of the Sur Global. These are spaces of ordered delirium and yawning inequality, defined by a fluid mode of development and a population that grows with every driving impulse. If cities are simultaneously lived and dreamed, then our task in imagining the teeming metropolises of 2050 is to envisage how social needs can best be translated into physical form.

The center of gravity is shifting to the cities of the South, moving definitively below the equator. This shift is creating a new political and social equator – a messy, snaking line defined not by latitude, but by the global distribution of wealth. It skirts around neighborhoods, creating pockets of unimaginable affluence in Rio de Janeiro and zones of unexpected deprivation in Athens. South of this equator, urban communities are growing faster than ever anticipated, in the process posing challenges we are struggling to comprehend and address.

Now Urbanism: The Future City Is Here

‘Forget About Utopia’

Publications

The most prevalent contemporary model of social housing – government-owned and constructed spaces that are rented to the public at affordable, subsidized rates – is only one of many possible approaches to providing dwellings for those members of society excluded from traditional property markets. In the vein of alternative social housing, we see the possibility for government to help establish conditions for the construction of homes without actually providing the home itself. We feel the key is balancing self-determination with top-down planning.

Real Estates: Life Without Debt

‘Capitalism and Freedom’

On December 7, 1972, a few hours into their mission, the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft turned away from their destination – the moon – and looked back to where they had come from – the Earth. They photographed what they saw, and their photograph of a fully illuminated Earth has become one of the most widely distributed images of all time. What captured the world’s imagination on that day was not an image of what lay in outer space, but a new image of our own world; a new way of perceiving what we thought we understood.

Title	2050: Designing Our Tomorrow (Architectural Design)
Authors	Alfredo Brillembourg, Hubert Klumpner & Alexis Kalagas
Release	July/August 2015
Guest Editor	Chris Luebkeman
Publisher	John Wiley & Sons
Pages	136

‘El Sur Global: Future Resilient City’

2050: Designing Our Tomorrow