*Informal Toolbox: SLUM Lab Paraisópolis* documents part of an evolving conversation between SLUM Lab researchers from Columbia University GSAPP, governmental organizations engaged in informal settlement upgrading, human rights activists, and partner academic institutions, all of whom share a belief that architecture has the potential to act transformatively in critical urban areas. This bilingual publication was produced as a collaboration between the São Paulo State Housing Secretariat (SEHAB) and Urban-Think Tank, and presents a catalogue of projects that work as a toolbox of ideas, with the aim of integrating precarious communities and the formal city through urban and land regulation, access to infrastructure, and improvement in environmental, habitability, and health conditions. It originated out of extended and ongoing research around São Paulo, and specifically within the Paraísopolis *favela*.


SLUM Lab Paraisópolis

Informal Toolbox

Can architecture and design respond to cities under stress? Capital flight, debt, and social crisis have left visible scars in urban environments worldwide. Buffeted by powerful forces, the endemic vacancy and deteriorating buildings that confront a visitor to Athens today are only the most immediate symptoms of longer-term decline. With its roots in a research and design initiative led by Urban-Think Tank, this book presents a collection of 101 spatial ideas that map a post-crisis vision for the city. Focusing on small and large-scale interventions alike, the authors identify and mobilize the latent potential found in the Greek capital by demonstrating how what already exists can be used in creative and unexpected ways. Targeting a range of challenges, from the economy and public space, to immigration, health, mobility, and poverty, *Reactivate Athens: 101 Ideas*can be read simultaneously as a both an in-depth toolkit and call to action. Alongside material produced by Urban-Think Tank, the book, which is written in Greek and English, includes contributions from Maria Kaltsa, Thomas Maloutas, and Panayotis Tournikiotis.


101 Ideas

Reactivate Athens

The *São Paulo Architecture Experiment* documents a collaboration between the São Paulo State Housing Secretariat (SEHAB), Urban-Think Tank, and various international partners focused on a reconsideration of minimal habitation in dense urban space. The project proposes that architects eschew their conventional role in traditional hierarchies and instead act as an enabling connection between the opposing forces of top-down planning and bottom-up initiatives. The book focuses on issues related to São Paulo’s urban development, covering topics such as water management, waste recycling, slum morphology, and economic development.


São Paulo Architecture Experiment

Torre David, a 45-story skyscraper in Caracas, has remained uncompleted since the Venezuelan economy collapsed in 1994. Today, it is the improvised home to more than 750 families living in an extra-legal and tenuous squat, that some have called a ‘vertical slum’. Urban-Think Tank spent a year studying the physical and social organization of this ruin-become home. Richly illustrated with photographs by Iwan Baan, *Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities* documents the residents’ occupation of the tower and how, in the absence of formal infrastructure, they organize themselves to provide for daily needs, with a hair salon, a gym, grocery shops, and more. Including contributions from Andres Lepik, André Kitagawa, Arno Schlueter, and Christian Schmid, this thought-provoking work not only investigates informal vertical communities and the architecture that supports them, but also issues a call for action: to see in informal settlements a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of putting design in service to a more equitable and sustainable future.


Tank — Shop

Informal Toolbox

SLUM Lab Paraisópolis

Reactivate Athens

101 Ideas

São Paulo Architecture Experiment

Torre David

Informal Vertical Communities