the INCREMENTAL house

I was able to link up with an NGO called Red Habitat doing housing work in both La Paz and El Alto. In El Alto, they are doing much more technical assistance, both in design and also microcredit. Once people come and ask for assistance with money, they can also get the assistance of an architect to help with layout issues, material issues, and labor issues. Sometimes people want it, sometimes they don’t. Almost 70% of people in El Alto build their homes themselves. The other third use some sort of professional help. Often, this help is in the form of ‘albaniles’, or craftsmen. They can be masons, painters, plumber, or electricians, or all of the above. One of the challenges Red Habitat has in improving the quality of housing here is that the status quo stays the same. People don’t really know any other way, so that is how things get done. Plus, most of the albaniles are pretty proud and don’t really like to be told how to do things, especially from an architect. ...

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...

The hills of La Paz The place is defined by topography as much as any place I have seen. And the geography or altitude dictates the strict and deep divisions in class. The wealthy live in Zona Sur, 1000-1500 feet below the rim of El Alto, where the poorest of this metropolitan area live. In the middle is La Paz , the commercial center of this part of the country. Zona Sur resembles many American or European suburbs with large, gated, and protected single family homes. The climate is much less harsh, and as much of the water drains to this area, and it is much greener and lush with vegetation. The heart of the city is provides most of the commercial opportunities and somewhat modern skyscrapers of banks, hotels, and apartments dot the landscape. But, as you move up the hillsides, the housing becomes informal, and at times, it almost becomes difficult to distinguish between the dull brown hillsides, and the extensive self built brick and adobe houses ringing the rim of the city....