Expect the Unexpected: PREVI-Lima and the customization of home (original) (raw)

, 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,