Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner are two key members in the Caracas Urban Think Tank. They work primarily through field research in the informal settlements of Caracas. The Vertical Gymnasium is a project that was developed for the Municipality of Chacao in Caracas. In the film, Caracas: The Informal City, Leopoldo Lopez, the mayor of the Municipality of Chacao says: "Why do I make the link between sports facilities and security? Because the main population that is being affected by crime, is this population (pointing to children playing soccer in the Vertical Gymansium).... This building is a way of bringing the city together, of bringing the barrio, connected with the city, through sports facilities."
See the Vertical Gymnasium project on the Urban Think Tank web site.
The Vertical Gymnasium will be one of the case study projects in my thesis. My thesis however, adds an extra layer to the sports facility and makes it a proper club. The idea of the club organization is to become a powerful communal tool, where club members (presumably composed mostly of residents of the informal neighbourhood) are provided with a form of representation in the arena of urban life. In addition, the club's installment in the existing network of clubs around the city provides its members with a new frame for networking, opening up new roads of communication between different sectors of the city that would have otherwise been difficult to realize.
(image: snapshot of the Vertical Gymnasium as shown in the film 'Caracas: The Informal City')
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