The Experimental Housing Project (PREVI), Lima: The Making of a Neighbourhood (original) (raw)
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Designing and building housing together_The Spanish case of La Borda.pdf
ENHR Conference Paper, 2018
The recent re-emergence of collaborative housing initiatives across Europe is perceived as an alternative solution to the current crisis on affordable housing in many urban centres. La Borda, a recent housing cooperative project in Barcelona, Spain was initiated by a group of citizens who were looking for economic and community-oriented ways to live in the city. To this end, they decided to collectively design and self-manage the whole project. This paper explores how the collective design process in La Borda impacted on the final outcome and contributed to its affordability. Anchored in concepts of participation, self-organisation, affordability and environmental and social sustainability, La Borda is influenced by Scandinavian collaborative housing, mainly in the use of the Andel tenure system and in the adoption of the co-housing model. In its turn, this South European initiative can provide innovative insights on design approaches to enrich the Nordic background in affordable collaborative housing. Key words: collaborative housing, affordability, collective design, design approaches, La Borda
"During the last fifteen years there has been a radical change as to what concerns architectural competitions’ practice in Switzerland in the collective housing domain. What mainly outlines this change of scenery is the use of competitions in a sector of the construction market that until now has been marked by the private initiative constantly leading to a repetition of well-known typologies and a rather reticent attitude towards young and “inexperienced” professionals. This situation is being currently modified. An increasing percentage of housing competitions, especially in the German-speaking part of the country, makes part of long-term development schemes regarding urban or suburban areas, schemes related to rehabilitation and densification mechanisms. At the same time the competitions system is being well promoted thanks to a subsequent number of detailed publications. State services and local authorities encourage cooperative constructing societies to act as exemplary promoters, in an effort to affront the housing shortage problem and to adequately qualify the dwelling space, elementary module of the urban environment. Collective housing is no longer considered exclusively in terms of financial conditions and compromises but also in terms of domestic space’s quality, given the rapid social changes that define new ways of life and set higher the users’ standards. A therefore increasing number of architects is being offered the opportunity to investigate certain areas of interest that in the past would not comply with the financial priorities of private investors. Innovative ideas and original “images” are being positively evaluated, whether concerning urban forms, housing typology or integration of technological achievements. The article presents four projects issued from recent housing competitions in Switzerland, as study cases that focus on different innovative aspects of the architectural conception."
VOCACIONES. From an urban vision to architectural projects.
In Mexico, as in many other countries, the galloping urban growth has turned a major issue for the authorities, because of their incapability to have responsive urban planning to provide of proper infrastructure and services to the whole population. The results are very uneven cities in terms of both physical and social realms. A couple of questions come to our mind as urban designers: how uneven are the cities in both realms? And, what can we do to overcome those differences? In order to answer these questions, we decided to focus on San Miguel de Allende –SMA- in Central Mexico. This small town of almost 72 thousand inhabitants (in the urban area) has been growing in a very accelerated but unplanned way relying its economy mostly in tourism (because its downtown is part of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites) as well as being considered as an option to live for retired foreigners. Looking at the official data, we realized that almost the whole county’s economy depends on just an area that represents 2% of the territory, where 80% of its GDP is produced but only 16% of the population are directly benefited (mostly foreigners, investors and entrepreneurs). Hence, we decided to intervene the city to generate a more balanced economy (beyond tourism) distributed more evenly in the territory. The interventions would increase the income of the population and create a strong middle-class (actually almost absent). According to the actual socio-economic conditions, the urban strategy then was to create four districts attending general deficiencies that can provide vitality and a good quality of life to the neighbours. For each district different possible projects (and their potential sites) were identified according to their particular conditions and finally, eleven architectural pieces were designed taking care they attend to those needs.
Expect the Unexpected: PREVI-Lima and the customization of home
, was presented as, among other intentions, a proposal to discuss a possible new generation of unidades vecinales (neighborhood units) in a city of rapid growth and with consequent housing problems. By the time the project started to take form, many slums had already occupied parts of vacant lots in Lima and its suburbs. At the same time a contesting discourse on the modernistic proposals for housing and cities was already prevailing. One can argue, and this will be one of the axes of this essay, to which extent PREVI-Lima can be fostered as a place to experiment with new urban principles that would translate not only to a critique on modernist principles but that would express current concerns and discourses on the urban scale. The project was first presented in 1966 by Peter Land, with John Turner, a known advocate for selfbuild strategies applied to architecture practice, as a mentor. Ten years passed between the presentation and the first house to be inhabited, a political change on Peru's power occurred, and from the initial 1500 housing units proposed only 500 saw the daylight. From the 26 teams chosen 13 were local and the other 13 were international, fostering thus the possibility for the desired final heterogeneity, or mosaic. All the teams, before presenting their final proposals, were invited to spend time in Lima to connect with future inhabitants and better understand the local materials and uses. Assuming the impossibility to address all the parts of the project, we have decided to approach it the following way: first, as primary source, we look to the program established by principal architect Peter Land and map it on the ground; to understand the later proposals of the 26 architects invited, and cumulatively, understand the later engagement or struggles with the inhabitants. Secondly, we critically assess two different answers to the program (by Aldo van Eyck and James Stirling) and question to what extent they were able to fulfill the program demands and expectations. Starting with a theoretical exposure of our main sources and an exposure of PREVI-Lima's program and its historical context, for on a second moment, a close read both the program, specifically the proposed answers presented by two architects, Aldo van Eyck and James Stirling, the inhabitants' engagement with the houses questioning the success of such proposals bearing in mind the dichotomy between mass production and customization. While doing so we also wish to bear in mind Paul Ricoeur's main theme 1 , with the opposition between universal versus national, and Kenneth Frampton's 2 , with his call for a critical regionalism, but more importantly the confrontation of those ideas with the architects own standing points towards their discipline; and finally, while concluding,
PREVI/LIMA. LOW COST HOUSING PROJECT
Photo montage of the international competitors at a briefing session with Peter Land (in front of blackboard), against a picture of El Augustino, Lima, (taken f mm Urban dwelling environments
2010
, the Netherlands). The research was supported for a part by the City-bond Utrecht (Netherlands)-León (Nicaragua) in order to gain information on self-help housing to be used in the urban development area León Southeast (6,000 plots for housing), León, Nicaragua. The municipality of León participated with the gaining of information in the first half of 2002 through a research visit in Lima of Arch. Enrique Lopez (project director León Southeast land for housing programme). The Citybond Amstelveen (the Netherlands)-Villa el Salvador was involved relating to the exchange of information on some environmental issues (Mrs. Evelien Eshuis, director of Milieu & Recreatie, Amstelveen). The research was written in October 2002 and finally updated in January 2003 1 owing to the Peruvian government"s initiative for a progressive house building programme in various parts of the country. The new housing programme called Mi Vivienda, which has been running since August of this year (2002), is intended for the various socioeconomic groups of society, and can have significant impact on the housing markets in the future. Interviews were held with local officials of the above mentioned areas, some NGOs and CBOs, residents, and officers of the (national) Building Materials Bank (BANMAT). The latter is a main provider of loans for self-builders in the whole country, but actually the Bank is facing financial problems because there are arrears with the paying-off of the loans granted to the self-builders. The areas researched were the municipal districts of 1) Villa el Salvador, 2) Huaycán in the municipality of Ate, 3) the Pilot Project Nuevo Pachacútec in the municipality of Ventanilla, and 4) Pamplona Alta in the municipality of San Juan De Miraflores (see Plate 1); the latter is an irregular new urban settlement, while the three first mentioned ones are "planned barriadas" 2. All these are urbanised areas now, being part of metropolitan Lima. The planned barriadas and the irregular settlements are of equal importance at the level of the metropolis. Using an inquiry form, representatives of groups and organisations were asked about the objectives and activities of the participants in relation to the process of self-building the houses, the houses with a workplace and small businesses. The objective of the questionnaire was to reveal the collaboration that actually took place between the residents, in its group as well as in the neighbourhood.