SpeakerAlfredo Brillembourg was born in New York, where he studied architecture at Columbia University before undertaking his master’s degree at the Central University of Venezuela. Brillembourg began his independent practice in architecture in Caracas, Venezuela when he founded Urban-Think Tank (U-TT).
U-TT is an interdisciplinary design practice dedicated to high-level research and design on a variety of subjects concerned with contemporary architecture and urbanism in complex environments. The architect's design approach is to devise innovative solutions in response to informal urban conditions in cities around the world and to respond to dramatic population shifts in urban zones.
The organisation’s philosophy draws on the combined skills of architects, civil engineers, environmental planners, landscape architects and communication specialists to deliver innovative, but practical, solutions to urban issues
Notable projects include the Caracas Metrocable, the Vertical Gym typology, and more recently the documentary and publication on Torre David – a 45-storey unfinished office tower in Caracas that has become a node for the study of informal vertical communities.
Since 2007, Brillembourg has taught at Columbia University, where he co-founded the Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab), and since July 2010, he’s held the chair for Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Institute of Technology, ETH in Zurich.