Maarten Kempenaar

Explorelab

Integrated Integrative Infrastructure

'O mais importante não é a arquitetura, mas a vida…’ – Oscar Niemeyer.

Historically, infrastructure is the largest force of São Paulo’s urban development. The structure functions on the scale of the metropolis, but disregards the more specific and local networks that structure the city. Resulting in a fragmented urban environment, unsustainable by nature. 

The solution is not beautiful architecture, but interlinking different scales, and balancing essential values of sustainability, by integrating infrastructure and its adjacent spaces. The role of the infrastructure is restored in its multifunctional nature, in its quality to bring a first state of order to the surrounding built environment. A backbone. 

This backbone, or framework, offers an integrative potential for the local scale. It is flexible, anticipatory and open to transformations initiated by the occupants of adjacent spaces. It allows for essential community values to be included. Social and cultural capital is enhanced and solutions for environmental issues are embedded within every scale. Understanding that life, and people, are the essential foundation of a city.

More information

Master thesis (Repository)