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Alfredo Brillembourg has designed and built the Empower Shack, an innovative, urban design solution to the housing crisis in South Africa’s townships that’s redefining the socio-economic system to overcome the emergent challenges in rapid urbanisation.

He’s an architect, urban designer and co-founder of Urban-Think Tank (U-TT), who believes that realisable micro-projects can have a major impact on the people living in rapidly urbanising cities, such as Cape Town – the fastest growing city on the continent.
Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) is an interdisciplinary practice dedicated to high-level research and design related to contemporary architecture and urbanism.

Through U-TT, Brillembourg is implementing design innovations for rapid and incremental informal settlement upgrades in the global South and, most recently, South Africa’s townships.
Following the end of apartheid, the South African government promised to improve the quality of housing and despite their efforts, there has been little noticeable change in many of South Africa’s townships. Approximately 7.5 million South Africans remain informally housed in 2 700 squatter camps and urban slums scattered across the country.

Courtesy Khumo Sebambo, Design Indaba

Initiatives such as this bring hope. Hear Brillembourg speak at the forthcoming Design Indaba Conference 2016. Look over this for other creative initiatives that can change the world