Participants Track Changes
23SUL (Brazil) is a São Paulo based architectural practice. It is an organization that works like a cooperative. This configuration has direct impact on the project methodology, in which permanent critique and team debate generate a rich exchange of knowledge and ideas.
Projects range from small but meaningful retrofits to large-scale public facilities. The practice has expertise on implementing public transport facilities in all kinds of urban contexts, from the analysis of masterplans to construction details, in several major Brazilian cities.
23° south is the approximate latitude of São Paulo metropolitan area. The choice of this name for the practice expresses the desire to create context-related architecture and to build a spatial discourse grounded on horizontal, collective intelligence. 23 SUL was founded by André Sant’Anna da Silva, Gabriel Manzi Frayze Pereira, Ivo Magaldi, Lucas Girard, Luís Pompeo Matins, Luiz Florence, Moreno Zaidan Garcia, Rafael Urano Frajndlich, Tiago Oakley (Rodrigo Mendes 2005-2009).
Francisco Barros, USINA, (Brazil)
Fernando Botton, URBZ (Brazil) holds a master’s in architecture from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona (etsaB-UPC). He practiced architecture in Spain, Lebanon and Brazil. He was a project manager in a Brazilian Social Housing CDHU Competition, which won 1st prize. He was also a project manager in Escritório Paulistano de Arquitetura – 2011/12 for a Social Housing Project-Real Parque São Paulo, which received a Honor Mention Project in the Quito Biennial. He is part of URBZ, an experimental urban research and action collective that organizes participatory workshops, facilitates hands-on research projects, creates urban forms and concepts, and develops web content about urban space and places. URBZ has offices in Mumbai and Goa in India and in São Paulo and Santiago in Latin America.
Elma van Boxel, Zus (NL). Elma van Boxel and Kristian Koreman are the founding directors of Bureau ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles], a pro-active office that combines research with interventions in the contemporary urban landscape with productions ranging from urban plans and architecture to installations and campaigns. Within this complex field they operate constantly in between two positions: as co-author and as critic. Van Boxel studied landscape architecture at Larenstein University and Architecture and Urbanism at the Academy in Rotterdam. Koreman studied landscape architecture at Larenstein University and philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Milton Braga, MMBB (Brazil) studied architecture at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Ubanismo da Universidade de Sao Paulo (FAUUSP), Brazil, receiving three degrees, the preliminary degree in 1986, his Masters in 1999 and a PhD in 2006. He has been teaching at the FAUUSSP since 2001, with previous academic positions at the Universidade Sao Judas Tadeu and Universidade Braz Cubas, both in Sao Paulo, and the University of Florida, USA. He is author of the book on the Brasilia competition O concurso de Brasília: sete projetos para uma capital, 2010, which was awarded several times.
Milton is a founding partner of MMBB Arquitetos. Since its inception in 1991, MMBB has grown in notoriety, earning well-deserved recognition through numerous awards and exhibitions like the First Prize in the Private Competition promoted by the State Government of São Paulo for the new Lodging, Classes and Rehearsal Complex for the International Festival of Campos do Jordao (2009) and the Best Entry Award for the Watery Voids proposal in the 3rd International Architecture Biennale of Rotterdam, 2007.
Crimson Architectural Historians (NL)
Jose Armenio de Brito Cruz, President Instituto de Architetos do Brasil (Brazil)
Maria Augusta Bueno, dir. São Paulo-lab Studio X (Brazil)
Mariana Fix, University of Campina (Brazil) is a professor at the Institute of Economics at the University of Campinas (Unicamp). She is the author of Partners in Exclusion (Parceiros da exclusão, 2001) and São Paulo Global City (São Paulo, Cidade Global, 2007). She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Campinas (2012), a master’s degree in Sociology from the University of São Paulo (2003), and a professional degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo (1996).
She has also published several articles and book chapters on the right to the city, planning and housing policies, slums and tenements in São Paulo, financial investments in land markets, real estate promotion and homebuilders, inner-city gentrification, globalization, and public-private partnerships.
She won the 2012 award for best PhD thesis in Economics, granted by the Brazilian institution CAPES (coordinating institute for the development of higher-education professionals). Mariana is a member of the Housing and Human Settlements Laboratory at the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo, and has been working with “Right to the City” organizations for several years.
Ana Carla Fonseca, Garimpo de Soluções (Brazil) is a public manager and economist. She has a master’s degree in management and a PhD in urbanism. For 15 years Carla managed innovation projects while based in São Paulo, London and Milan. She is a partner of Garimpo de Soluções, a pioneering company in the creative economy and creative cities. Carla addressed audiences in 5 languages in 25 countries, is an advisor for the UN, a curator of seminars and a consultant for companies and governments. She is the author of Marketing Cultural e Financiamento da Cultura (2002), Economia da Cultura e Desenvolvimento Sustentável (2006) and Cidades Criativas (2012).
Carla concieved and edited e-books such as Creative Economy as a Development Strategy (2008) and Creative City Perspectives (2009), coordinates post-grad courses at Fundação Getulio Vargas and National University of Cordoba and teaches at King Juan Carlos University. She is Content Director of ExpoGestão, a member of the International Association for the Economics of Culture (ACEI), of the Ibero-American Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Culture and Development, of the Global Pool of Experts in Public Policies (UNESCO), of Repensadores network, of the Board of Editors of Página 22 and of the Boards of Virada Sustentável, New Ventures Brasil, Minha Sampa, Creative Industries Development Agency (England) and Creative Business Cup (Denmark). Recently she was awarded a Prêmio Claudia, the most important women’s award in Latin America.
Natália Garcia (Brazil)
Rupali Gupte & Prasad Shetty, Crit (India). Rupali Gupte is an architect and an urban designer based in Mumbai. She completed her Bachelors of Architecture from the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture (KRVIA), University of Mumbai and Masters of Architecture from Cornell University, USA. She has been a fellow at KRVIA and SARAI, Delhi and has worked as a consulting architect for several projects in India and US. She has been an Urban Design Consultant to the Town Administration of Mendefera, Eritrea. She currently works as an Asst. Professor at the KRVIA. Rupali has written and presented several papers on urbanism, infrastructure and housing in institutions around the world. Some of her involvements in urban development projects include the Redevelopment of Mill Lands of Mumbai, Redevelopment of the Eastern Water Fronts, Mumbai; Preparation of Comprehensive Plan for Greater Mendefera Region, Eritrea; Preparation of Heritage Guidelines for Dadar Parsi/Hindu Colonies; Evaluation of Slum Sanitation Programme, Self-Re-development of Various Slums and other Housing Colonies in Mumbai and Research on Tactical Practices in cities.
Prasad Shetty is an urbanist based in Mumbai. He has studied architecture (Mumbai) and urban management (Rotterdam). He is one of the founding members of the urban research collective; CRIT. He also works with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region – Environment Improvement and Heritage Conservation Society and teaches at the Rachana Sansad’s Academy of Architecture in Mumbai. Earlier he has worked as an urban manager at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority. He has also been a lecturer at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture; an independent fellow at the SARAI-CSDS, Delhi; a consulting urban management expert to the Town Administration of Mendefera, Eritrea; and an expert member to the Dadra–Nagar Haveli Planning & Development Authority. His work involves research and teaching on contemporary Indian urbanism. His recent works include: De-Mapping: an installation emerging from the hyper-mapping tendencies of urban study practices (supported by Khoj, Delhi); Bombay Talkies and Other Stories of Malad: a research on the land politics in the suburb of Mumbai (supported by Majlis, Mumbai); Being Nicely Messy: a research on projecting future mobility of Mumbai (supported by the Audi Urban Futures Initiative); and Gurgaon Glossaries: compiling the terms that are getting formed when the new city of Gurgaon is settling (supported by SARAI, Delhi & the Devi Art Foundation.
Charles Holland, FAT Architecture (UK) is an architect, writer and teacher. He is a director of the London based architecture practice FAT, whose work includes housing, schools, cultural and civic buildings, as well as interiors, exhibitions and design. Recent projects include the Museum of Copying – an installation at the 13th International Architecture Biennale, Venice – new production studios for the BBC and a collaborative design with the artist Grayson Perry for a new house in the English countryside.
Charles has been a director of FAT since 1996 and has been the principal in charge of a number of the practice’s key projects, including the Islington Square housing scheme in Manchester. He has particular experience of housing design and resident consultation and participation. He ran the resident design workshops at Islington Square and has written extensively on issues of self-build and DIY design.
Charles also teaches and is currently a visiting Professor at Yale University in the US and a design tutor at the Royal College of Art, London. He lectures, teaches and writes regularly about architecture and design. Along with his FAT colleagues he recently guest edited an edition of AD with Charles Jencks, entitled Radical Post Modernism. He has written for Domus, Quaderns, Icon and Architectural Review amongst others and also edits the popular architecture web log Fantastic Journal. He can also be found on Twitter as @fatcharlesh.
Kazuo Nakano, dir. Urban Development of São Paulo (Brazil)
Ana Luiza Nobre, curator of the X Bienal de Arquitetura de São Paulo (Brazil) is a Brazilian architectural historian, author and critic based in Rio de Janeiro. She coordinates the Master in Architecture at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), where she has been teaching Architectural History and Theory for the last 10 years. She received her architectural training at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where she graduated in 1986. Later on she studied at the Politecnico di Torino, and received her PhD in History in 2008 at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She is a member of CICA/International Committee of Architectural Critics, founder and ex-director of "Casa de Lucio Costa", a private organisation dedicated to preserve and disseminate Lucio Costa’s work. She is author of several books and articles, and organises regularly seminars and exhibitions, mainly on modern and contemporary architecture in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil.
Wagner Reheby, Urban-Think Tank, (Brazil) is an interdisciplinary design practice dedicated to high-level research and design on a variety of subjects, concerned with contemporary architecture and urbanism. Founded in 1993 by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner in Caracas, the philosophy of U-TT is to deliver innovative yet practical solutions through the combined skills of architects, civil engineers, environmental planners, landscape architects, and communication specialists. Since 2007, Brillembourg and Klumpner have taught at Columbia University, where they founded the Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab), and since July 2010, they hold the chair for Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Institute of Technology, ETH in Zürich. Their work concerns both theoretical and practical applications within architecture and urban planning. Working in global contexts by creating bridges between first world industry and third world, informal urban areas, they focus on the education and development of a new generation of professionals, who will transform cities in the 21st century. They have been awarded the 2010 Ralph Erskine Award from the Swedish Association of Architects for their innovation in architecture and urban design with regard to social, ecological and aesthetic aspects and in 2012 received the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale together with curator Justin McGuirk and photographer Iwan Baan. In the same year U-TT chair at the ETH Zürich published the book Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities. The U-TT has offices in Caracas, São Paulo, New York, and Zürich.
Damon Rich, Urban Designer for the City of Newark (USA) is a designer, artist, and the founder of CUP. In his exhibitions, graphic works, and events, sometimes produced in collaboration with young people and community-based organizations, Rich creates fantastical spaces for imagining the physical and social transformation of the world. His work represented the United States at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, and has been exhibited at PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and the Netherlands Architecture Institute. In 1997, he founded CUP, and was Executive Director for 10 years. Damon currently serves as the Urban Designer for the City of Newark, New Jersey, where he leads design efforts with public and private actors to improve the city’s public spaces.
Nanne de Ru, Powerhouse Company (NL) is co-founder of Powerhouse Company and the director of The Berlage Center of Advanced studies in Architecture and Urban Design. He studied Architectural Engineering at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science and received the Master of Excellence in Architecture in 2002 from the Berlage Institute, Postgraduate Laboratory of Architecture, in Rotterdam. From 2002 to 2004 Nanne de Ru worked at Rem Koolhaas’ AMO, the research branch of OMA, as lead researcher and designer. In 2005 Nanne de Ru founded Powerhouse Company with Charles Bressard. The practice has branches in Rotterdam and Copenhagen. Nanne leads the Rotterdam team. Since the beginning of 2013 Nanne de Ru is Director of The Berlage. He has taught and lectured at schools across Europe, such as the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, the Ecole Speciale d’Architecture in Paris and the Oslo School of Architecture and Design.
Supersudaca (Latin America). Supersudaca is an award-winning international think tank of architecture and urban research. In an almost stubborn way Supersudaca refuses to believe that the only space left for architects in Latinamerica is to build villas for rich people (though it does not discard that option altogether!). Its main driving motto has been to connect the usually disconnected Latinamerica architectural arena with projects directly related to the public perception such as recreation spaces, public spaces, installations etc. in various locations such as Caracas, Lima, Tokyo, Talca, Buenos Aires. Supersudaca continuously uses the workshop format with students from various universities worldwide to launch campaigns for such projects. Besides direct actions Supersudaca has two ongoing (award winning) research projects, one related to experimental social housing in Lima and another about the impacts of tourism in the Caribbean. More recently Supersudaca won the international competition of ‘vanguard’ social housing in Ceuta, Spain with their design for 170 houses.
Carlos Teixeira, Vazio S/A (Brazil) has a BA at EA-UFMG (1992, Belo Horizonte, Brazil) and a Master’s Degree at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (1994, London). Frequently focusing on the contradiction between “voids” and “fullnesses”, construction and destruction, his projects range from private houses to researches on the urban scale. He has published several books, most recently Entre (Cidades Criativas, 2010), a book that summarizes Vazio’s research on body and space, urban art and the performing arts. He has shown his work at IV Bienal de Arquitetura de São Paulo; Pavillion de l’Arsenal, Paris; IX Venice Biennale; the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), London; the Victoria & Albert Museum (London); and the 29th Sao Paulo International Art Biennial.
His office Vazio S/A (Void, Inc.) was established in 2002 and combines commercial commissions (houses, flats, etc) with the production of cultural events, participation in architectural competitions, publications of texts and essays, and research on new fronts in architecture. Vazio S/A adopts an active attitude in which the city and its problems are seen as triggers for new projects and as a source for new solutions and opportunities.
Guillerme Wisnik, curator X Bienal de Arquitetura de São Paulo (Brazil)