Tools for Disruption
AA Diploma Unit 10
2021 / 2022
London, UK
About_
It is nowadays usual practice for developers to appropriate themselves of specific sites – perhaps in disuse or in great decline – and flip them into new and trendy destinations. This often allows them to have total ownership, control and authority over such areas.
Tools for Disruption deals with the notion of inserting foreign elements on the dividing border between Kings Cross and the Borough of Islington, in order to counteract the sterile nature of the much acclaimed Business Improvement District.
Through the introduction and strategic placement of communal projects at different scales, these foreign structures will populate the diverging edge, acting as agents in order to hijack the anodyne nature of the development and challenge the status quo.
El Oasis Urbano de La Habana
AA Intermediate Unit 8
2018 / 2019
Havana, Cuba
About_
In this past decade, Cuba is going through a substantially challenging time due to US reinstating the commerce embargo.
Facing this situation, the local government is continuously making an effort to improve its economy through the tourism industry. However, this economic policy, in cities like Havana, is only favouring tourist experience of the city and not to locals’ reality, generating a growing gap between the two communities.
This projects proposes a new building typology which condenses the existing urban programs of Havana to encourage new scenarios of interaction between diverging communities.
The juxtaposition of the different programs contained within the building will allow the generation of moments of friction between the users and spark new scenarios of social interaction.