If you’re in Berlin between July 12-August 29, make sure to check out the Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities exhibition at Aedes Berlin, organized by ETH Zurich Department of Architecture and Urban Design together with Alfredo Brillembroug & Hubert Klumpner of Urban-Think Tank. The exhibition will present an extended format of and new research gathered since their installation on Torre David, for which they won the Golden Lion at the 2012 Biennale di Venezia.
Torre David, a 45-storey office tower in Caracas designed by the distinguished Venezuelan architect Enrique Gómez, was almost complete when it was abandoned following the death of its developer, David Brillembourg, in 1993 and the collapse of the Venezuelan economy in 1994. Today, it is the improvised home of a community of more than 750 families, living in an extra-legal and tenuous occupation that some have called a vertical slum. Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, along with their research and design teams at Urban-Think Tank and ETH Zürich, spent a year studying the physical and social organisation of this ruin-turned-home. Where some only see a failed development project, U-TT has conceived it as a laboratory for the study of the informal settlement. With the support of the Schindler Group, U-TT also explored innovative design solutions to address new modes of vertical mobility.
In a continuation of U-TT’s analysis on the intersection between verticality and informal communities, the exhibition lays out a vision for practical, sustainable interventions in Torre David and similar informal settlements around the world. It argues that the future of urban development lies in collaboration among architects, private enterprise, and the global population of slum-dwellers. Brillembourg and Klumpner issue a call to arms to fellow architects: to see in the informal settlements of the world a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of using design in the service of a more equitable and sustainable future.
Exhibition: 12 July – 29 August 2013
Opening: Friday, 12 July 2013, 7:00PM
Aedes Am Pfefferberg, Christinenstraße 18-19, 10119 Berlin
For more information on Torre David, follow torredavid.com