Not owners, just creators

Although I can’t speak about slums as they are outside my experience, I think that they are a perfect example of a lesson that we all should learn about architectural hubris. Oftentimes as architects, we can get so caught up in the world we create through our design that we forget that we do not own the end product. The concept of “ownership” in architecture is constantly challenged, especially in cases such as the Torre David in Caracas. The architects who designed the tower as businesses and offices probably never envisioned that their building would one day become a living space, much less a high-rise slum. I think we can take a lesson from this that, no matter how much we try to design spaces for specific purposes or control the human experience of our designs, humanity will always find a way to make a space its own. Rather than think of this as a detriment to our designs, we should embrace it as a positive that people build and remake spaces that suit them and we are the ones who get to provide a framework for that.