the INCREMENTAL house

For my last stint in South America, I returned to the outskirts of La Paz , Bolivia , to the sprawling city of El Alto . I decided to rent a room in the neighborhood of Senkata ($30 a month, no bathroom) and get to know the built environment and people a little better than I had on my previous visit ( http://incrementalhouse.blogspot.com/2008/10/bolivia-la-paz-and-el-alto.html ). I was really curious to better understand the built environment of a city that has been termed the ” Rebel City .” Because on the surface, there seemed to be nothing rebellious about most of the housing. It was a bit of tense time, as the country almost fell into chaos, after Bolivia’s own ‘9-11’, when almost thirty people were killed in a clash between supporters and detractors of President Morales and his attempts to shift revenues from the wealthy lowlands to poorer highlands. For background, see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/world/americas/15bolivia.html?scp=1&sq=bolivia%20ma...

Pedregulho and Context On the way to the Metro Pedregulho entrance Studio favela edge favela edge favela upgrading While in Rio , I visited Pedregulho housing, designed by Affonso Eduardo Reidy and built around 1950. It has 6 floors and 272 apartments. It is quite a contrast to anything around there, and neatly connects with the terrain as it weaves around the hillside. The third floor offers is open and offers a great experience of moving into the building, and then gains a commanding view of the surrounding neighborhood, which off to one side consists of a very dense fabric of favelas. However, they both seem to relate to each other, with the colors, and texture of lived in buildings. There, I initially saw two options on where to get involved on the housing issues for architects and planners. And that was a tough option. Pedregulho (architect’s disregard for people’s lives) on the left and the favelas (state and society’s disregard for people...

source:http://www.rc.unesp.br/igce/planejamento/gpapt/links.htm One day, I got lost in a city of walls. It was pretty extraordinary how fortified and different the affluent neighborhoods are. I went wandering trying to find a favela. I found Paraisopolis, only through some images on from the internet. I was interested in the juxtaposition. It was one of the most extraordinary I had seen. Private swimming pools on balconies cantilevered over a favela. I was on foot. I followed a google map I had. It showed clearly streets running through the suburban type rich neighborhood into the densely packed favela right next to it. The google map was wrong, and it was impossible to move between the two zones. In fact, there were walls, barbed wire and security guards. Not surprising at all, stark and amazing on the ground and in person. The guards were everywhere. On the entrance to the substreets. On the actual streets, on foot, cars, and on bikes, and then in the doorway...

I tagged along with Tatiana as she visited an NGO working in the periphery in a place called Diadema. It had become a separate urban municipality right outside Sao Paulo and much of the housing stock was informal. We were visiting an NGO called Rede Cultural do Beija Flor. ( http://asasdobeijaflor.blogspot.com/ ). The place was flowing with creative energy, unlike almost anywhere I had seen. Between music, dance, art, and leadership development, this place had been taking a lot of kids off the streets and offering alternatives for a number of the other kids in the areas growing up in favelas. The results were extraordinary. They had built, designed and painted an entire complex. Youth could come there and spend all day. There were art and painting classes. Graffiti and other street artists would come and give work shops. All kinds of music was explored there, even the youngest kids were playing beautiful things. But some of the more extraordinary work seemed to be co...

Cidade Tirandentes (source: wikipedia) I had been really wanting see what was going on in the periphery. I could look at in Google Earth, but figuring out how to get out there and where to go was certainly not easy. I linked up with a great group, Uniao Nacional por Moradia Popular (UNMP) ( www.unmp.org.br ) and the leader of it spent a little speaking with me. She invited me to a signing ceremony of a new housing project to move people out of some favelas. It had taken them 6 years to get to a point of signing an agreement. The big party spilled out into the neighborhood street. She linked me up with a young architect doing work with mutiraos. These were housing projects run and managed (even constructed) by the future residents. I was interested in this model, because in Brazil , under Lula’s leadership and because of the active participation of so many people in the production of their city, progressive policy has given into new partnerships to effectively transfer...