The Hugo Chavez-initiated Bank of the South seeks to be an alternative entity to the IMF in South America. It aspires to sponsor development in South America for South America, bypassing lending contingent on outsider interests and unreasonable returns.
The design of the bank seeks to be an analogous architecture; it aligns the projects of the bank with architecture of the building, absorbing the bank into the reconstruction of a viaduct & bus station. By interfacing with a connective tissue of the city the bank will confront the city in new ways and evolve a different relationship with the people that are supposed to benefit from its work.
The project acts as an intervention on the multilayered city of Sao Paulo, where redevelopment and environment have resulted in city upon city. The project extrudes out of a datum in the sky, in some sense, reaching up and down to connect these layers.
Source:Sid Wichienkuer
