Collaborators: cDAC, Doppelmayr Seilbahnen GmbH, Intégral, Robert Silman Associates, Ruedi Bauer & Associates, TOPOTEK 1, Carlos Bastidas, Carlos Silva, Cesar Gavidia, Christian Bohne, Deleida Alvarez, Dora Kelle, Eduardo Lopez, Elizabeth Florian, Felix Caraballo, Claudia Ochoa, José Antonio Nuñez, Juan Ponce, Lindsey Sherman, Matt Tarczynski, Martin Rein-Cano, Martin Schöffel, Michael Contento, Pat Arnett, Patrick Edlinger, Rafael Machado, Regina Orvañanos, Ruedi Baur.
Urban-Think Tank’s aerial cable car design is integrated with the underground Metro System of Caracas. The system is 2.1 km in length and employs gondolas holding 8 passengers each and at each of the 5 stations it has integrated social infrastructure. Metro Cable's capacity allows for the movement of 1.200 people per hour in each direction. Two stations are in the valley and connect directly to the Caracas public transportation system. Three additional stations are located along the mountain ridge, on sites that meet the demands of community access, established pedestrian circulation patterns, and spatial availability for construction, ensuring minimal demolition of existing housing.
The five stations' designs share a basic set of components: platform levels, ramps for access, circulation patterns, materials, and structural elements. However, each station differs in configuration and additional functions, and the separate stations include cultural, social, and system administrative functions; replacement of demolished residences with more homes, as well as public spaces; a gym, supermarket, and daycare center; and a link between the cable car system and the municipal bus circuit.
Two of the station's hubs are placed in the valley of Caracas and connect directly to the Metro public underground system. Three additional stations are located along the mountain ridge, on sites that meet the demands of community access, established pedestrian circulation patterns, and also suitability for construction, ensuring minimal demolition of existing housing.
The Concept of retrofitting slums proposes that the future urban condition will be stratified. New tools will connect neighborhoods above the street with cable cars like our San Agustin project allowing for vertical, horizontal and diagonal mobility. In this operation hubs of different sizes connect the range of mobility elements, systems and programs. This mobility policy will bring back public space because it eases the ground plane that now becomes programmable public surface. Realizing the benefits of team work the urban proposal brings about an interoperable mobility system that merges the formal and informal the public and the private.
The five station designs have a basic set of components in common; platform levels, ramps for access, circulation patterns, materials, and structural elements. However, each station differs in configuration and additional functions for the public.
The Metro-Cable project in San Agustin Caracas has connected a hill town barrio to the city and came out of a collective protest against the government for the need of 40,000 people to access transportation and the urban design of this cable car system is a new alternative for cities around the world to have an interurban transport solution.
The Caracas Metro Cable, just as those in Medellin and Rio de Janeiro, show how hillside communities can be integrated into a metropolitan transport system that serves all citizens, regardless of their income and the local topography. This concept of a city without car traffic can be adopted as a model for other metropolises. While technological innovations are certainly crucial for such development, we see the design process, in these contexts, as a matter of creativity and social organizing. This is the turf of 21st century urban design.
