Urban Parangolé at the Audi Urban Future Award
Urban-Think Tank was selected as one of five architectural offices to develop a vision for the future of mobility in cities. The team focused on Säo Paulo, looking critically at existing infrastructure and transportation patterns in order to imagine future products and processes.
Since the 1930s, Brazilian government investment has focused on the growth of extensive automobile infrastructure, a trend that has diminished investment in alternative modes of mass transit, and resulted in current issues of congestion and infrastructure limitations. This is a key component of the larger, asymmetrical urbanization process. Population density in parts of the central region of the city have diminished, while the urbanization of peripheral areas, especially in the sprawling gated communities and favelas, has exploded. As a consequence, the majority of people within São Paulo face both social and territorial immobility. Innovative new modes and pathways of notion are needed to make São Paulo an accessible and inclusive city for all of its inhabitants.
The resulting proposal, titled, “Urban Parangolé” liberates spaces of the contemporary city, engaging a fully three-dimensional field of mobility. Through the strata of different elevations and temporal flux, city planners introduce new pathways and services that allow São Paulo to support a swider variety of programs and typologies. Technology and democratic planning processes increase accessibility and self-determined public space. Urban Parangolé ultimately proposes the creation of networked villages that stitch together a fragmented city at a human scale.
Additional Details:
Leads: Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner
Research & Design Coordinator: Lindsey Sherman
Team: Mariana Albuquerque, Michael Contento, Alessia Finckenstein, Fabiola Cedillo Espin, Hannes Gutberlet, Sudipta Iyer, André Kitagawa, Philipp Kremer, Pauline Launay, Scott Lloyd, Rafael Machado, Ilana Millner, Lea Rüfenacht, Daniel Schwartz, Torunn Vaksvik Skarstad, Maria Abadia Suanzes-Carpegna, Dominik Weber, with students from the International Summer Academy 2012, ETH Zurich, and participants of the São Paulo ANCB workshop
Consultants: Thomas Auer (Transsolar), Daniel Dendra (anOtherArchitect), Maximilian Jezo-Parovsky, Federico Parolotto, Scott Ritter (SSR)
Presentation Booklet: Ruedi Baur, Gina Donzé (Intégral Ruedi Baur)
In partnership with the city of São Paulo, Secretaria Municipal de Habitação (SEHAB), Elisabete França and Maria Teresa Diniz
Selected Press
Urban Parangolé the Mobile Village,” DesignBoom, 2012
“Urban-Think Tank’s Research on São Paulo,” Audi Urban Future, 2012
“The Audi Urban Future Award 2012,” Domus, 2012
“Audi Urban Future Award,” Bauwelt, 2012