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Urban-Think Tank
Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) ist eine interdisziplinäre Designagentur, die aus der politisch instabilen Lage Caracas’ zu Zeiten der Chávez-Ära hervorging und seit gut 20 Jahren Projekte in Lateinamerika, Europa und Afrika verwirklicht. Durch seine vielschichtige Arbeit nahm das Unternehmen Ende der 1990er-Jahre die Vorreiterrolle einer sozialen Wende in der Architektur ein; mit stadtplanerischen Interventionen, die den sozialen Zusammenhalt in den Metropolen auf der südlichen Halbkugel und in den wachsenden Städten Europas stärkten. Zudem produzierte U-TT zahlreiche Medienprojekte, die Film, Theater, Ausstellungen und Druckarbeiten für sich nutzen, um neue diskursive Räume zu schaffen und die Frage aufzuwerfen, wie und für wen unsere Städte entwickelt sind. Die wohl bekannteste Arbeit entstand über das Torre-de-David-Hochhaus, die auf der Architekturbiennale von Venedig 2012 mit dem Goldenen Löwen ausgezeichnet wurde. Dieses Buch blickt jedoch nicht nur zurück, sondern auch nach vorn, ersinnt neue Räume für eine hyper-urbanisierte Welt und ermöglicht Einblicke in informelle Siedlungen, räumliche Spielflächen und künstlerische Interventionen im öffentlichen Raum.
Torre David
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, the authors of TORRE DAVID: INFORMAL VERTICAL COMMUNITIES, spent a year studying the physical and social organization of this ruin-become home. Richly illustrated with photographs by Iwan Baan, the book 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. The authors of this thought-provoking work investigate informal vertical communities and the architecture that supports them and issue 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. ILLUSTRATIONS: 300
Reconstructive Critics
Struyk, an analyst of housing policy and finance and community development with the Urban Institute was inspired for this account by Russian and Hungarian think tanks he worked with in 1990 and 1991, as well as efforts to create or restructure such bodies in the west. He draws on interviews with people from think tanks and policy makers in Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Russian Federation, and with representatives of the donor community both in those countries and elsewhere. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Now Urbanism
After more than a century of heroic urban visions, urban dwellers today live in suburban subdivisions, gated communities, edge cities, apartment towers, and slums. The contemporary cities we know are more often the embodiment of unexpected outcomes and unintended consequences rather than visionary planning. As an alternative approach for rethinking and remaking today’s cities and regions, this book explores the intersections of critical inquiry and immediate, substantive actions. The contributions inside recognize the rich complexities of the present city not as barriers or obstacles but as grounds for uncovering opportunity and unleashing potential. Now Urbanism asserts that the future city is already here. It views city making as grounded in the imperfect, messy, yet rich reality of the existing city and the everyday purposeful agency of its dwellers. Through a framework of situating, grounding, performing, distributing, instigating, and enduring, these contributions written by a multidisciplinary group of practitioners and scholars illustrate specificity, context, agency, and networks of actors and actions in the re-making of the contemporary city.
Small Scale, Big Change
Published to accompany the exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 28 Sept. 2010-3 Jan. 2011.
Design Like You Give a Damn [2]
Design Like You Give a Damn [2] is the indispensable handbook for anyone committed to building a more sustainable future. Following the success of their first book, Architecture for Humanity brings readers the next edition, with more than 100 projects from around the world. Packed with practical and ingenious design solutions, this book addresses the need for basic shelter, housing, education, health care, clean water, and renewable energy. One-on-one interviews and provocative case studies demonstrate how innovative design is reimagining community and uplifting lives. From building-material innovations such as smog-eating concrete to innovative public policy that is repainting Brazil’s urban slums, Design Like You Give a Damn [2] serves as a how-to guide for anyone seeking to build change from the ground up. Praise for Design Like You Give a Damn [2]: !--StartFragment-- “The resourcefulness of the projects in the book is inspiring, its information practical (see Stohr’s chapter on financing sustainable community development) and its numerous factoids sobering.” —TMagazine.blogs.NYTimes.com
Managing Think Tanks
Practical advice for policy institutes and consulting agencies.
The Fifth Estate
The Fifth Estate: Think Tanks, Public Policy, and Governance is a comprehensive look at think tanks and the important role they play in shaping public policy and public discourse in the United States. Author James G. McGann illustrates the lasting impact of think tanks in today’s civil society. A survey that McGann conducted among all the leading think tanks in the United States highlights the progress that think tanks in the United States have made and the challenges they have yet to face. McGann clarifies the correlation between think tank research and the policies enacted by the past three presidential administrations by looking at case studies in both foreign and domestic policy. He also describes a phenomenon known as “the revolving door,” where think tanks provide former government officials an opportunity to share insights from public service, remain involved in policy debates, and continue to provide advice and commentary. Based on the history and the level of involvement seen today, the influence of think tanks is unlikely to diminish in the coming years.
Re-living the City
This richly illustrated book presents the exhibits and curatorial visions of the 2015 Shenzhen Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (UABB), organized around the theme, Re-Living the City. It highlights the contributions of dozens of international architects, designers and artists, and offers 12 probing, original essays. The projects and essays of UABB 2015, Re-Living the City, criticize the status quo of architecture and urbanism, but they also resist the false dream of designing a perfect city from scratch. Instead, they portray the city as the incremental product of its inhabitants and designers, who provisionally make and remake its fabric through various means at their disposal. Urbaniz...
Shaping Terrain
Shaping Terrain shows how the physical landscape and local ecology have influenced human settlement and built form in Latin America since pre-Columbian times. Most urban centers and capitals of Latin American countries are situated on or near dramatically varied terrain, and this book explores the interplay between built works and their geographies in various cities including Bogotá, Caracas, Mendoza, Mexico D. F., Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Chile, and Valparaíso. The multi-national contributors to Shaping Terrain have a broad range of professional experience as urbanists, historians, and architects, and many are globally renowned for their design work. They examine how humans negotiate with the existing environment and how the built form expresses that relationship. The result is a wide-ranging representation of the unique legacy of Latin America’s urban heritage, which is a repository of possibilities for future cities.
