the INCREMENTAL house

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/05/05/incremental-housing-strategy-by-filipe-balestra-and-sara-goransson/ An interesting project surfaced on Dezeen that highlighted an incremental upgrading strategy in Pune, India, which was to be designed to be implemented in other places as well.  While the images provide a provocative and compelling new vision of the community, they are basically reorganizing and formalizing what the people and the communities are already doing.  It does beg the question if we give ourselves (architects) too much credit for coming up with something new and game changing. 

  Driving down US-19 from Bryson City to Cherokee, NC, there exists a campground that is unique even for Western North Carolina.  While it is not uncommon to see RV's with permanent roofs built over them, this particular campground in the small community of Ella was extraordinary because so many of the structures, as well as the community itself, had become permanent. Most campgrounds of this sort provide summer havens for people from the deep south.  In the summer, they can bring their homes up to the cooler mountains, and then in winter, they can take them back where it is warmer.  However, many people now live in this community permanently, as they have found a way to exand their living space while not having to pay the high costs of land and materials typicaly in many houses in Western North Carolina.