SPACE May 2025 (No. 690)
Empower Community 1. The first Empower Community was implemented in the BT Section of Site C, Khayelitsha, Cape Town. ©UTT
Informal settlements, often referred to as ‘slums’, exist within cities yet remain structurally excluded from infrastructure and legal rights. Urban-Think Tank (UTT), a collective of architectural practitioners, has long focused on living conditions that sit outside institutional frameworks. Drawing on over 30 years of experience building urban infrastructure in impoverished areas of Latin America, UTT now introduces the Empower Model, a social housing initiative for informal settlements in South Africa. Moving beyond housing provision to integrate infrastructure, institutional transitions, and financial models, Empower’s first implementation serves as the basis for this conversation with UTT founder Alfredo Brillembourg, exploring how architecture can meaningfully engage with realities beyond formal systems.
Vertical Gym Chacao—Caracas, Venezuela (2006) ©Ana Luisa Figueredo
Lee Sowoon (Lee): The UTT has been active in impoverished areas around the world making interventions through architecture and design that aim to bring about tangible improvements to the urban environment. As an architect, how do you understand the issue of poverty today?
Alfredo Brillembourg (Brillembourg): I’ve been lucky. Growing up in a middle-class family in Venezuela in the 1980s, I had access to opportunity. I was able to study architecture at Columbia University—those were different times. Once I graduated and returned to Caracas, my country was in chaos. I dedicated myself to social entrepreneurship through my studio and began asking how architecture could improve life in the barrios—the poor neighbourhoods. Here’s...
