On Architectural Participation
The growing number of informal settlements (slums) worldwide are a testament to the paradoxical demand and ineffectiveness architecture Giancarlo de Carlo discusses. These places stand in contrast to the 'burbs–they're dangerous, disorganized, and culturally rich. This is what happens when the user builds without restrictions.
I love this project, Chile's Quinta Monroy Housing, because it negotiates between the dangerous development of the informal slum and the sterility of government housing projects. Architects designed the concrete half of the structure, which acts as a firewall, contains plumbing, and structural stability. Residents self-build the rest of the house.
"...we cannot just sit passively in the cave of architecture as-it-exists, waiting for social rebirth to generate architecture..."
If the user leads we get dangerous self-built slums. If the investor-client leads we get a sterile architecture suppressing people. Architects have to lead.
I love this project, Chile's Quinta Monroy Housing, because it negotiates between the dangerous development of the informal slum and the sterility of government housing projects. Architects designed the concrete half of the structure, which acts as a firewall, contains plumbing, and structural stability. Residents self-build the rest of the house.
"...we cannot just sit passively in the cave of architecture as-it-exists, waiting for social rebirth to generate architecture..."
If the user leads we get dangerous self-built slums. If the investor-client leads we get a sterile architecture suppressing people. Architects have to lead.
I'm not sure that architects have to lead in a solitary role as your last paragraph suggests, but instead I think it should be a co-leadership between architect and user. Deleting the user from the equation leads to architecture for architecture's sake and not an architecture for the user.
ReplyDeleteLeadership ≠ Dictatorship
DeleteI agree with Peter that if architects lead there will become a influx in architecture that does not take into account the occupant and could become unlivable. I think what needs to be done is the same thing that Alejandro Aravena did which was he went to the slums and collaborated with them on what they needed and that was what drove the project. So perhaps we need to listen more to the individuals that will be occupying a space so that it is optimized.
ReplyDelete