the INCREMENTAL house

Senkata The rim of El Alto I went back to El Alto drawn to a city, an indigenous, self built city, that had served as a space of resistance against so many things wrong with the world. The now infamous gas wars, when Altenos prohibited natural gas destined for the US from leaving the Senkata Plant in 2003, brought down three presidents. There is an effective civic structure that can mobilize tens of thousands of people instantly. I saw it with my own eyes. But, I am not going to make it out to be the romantic notion of collectivity that I wish it was. It is not. Many people are aspiring, making money, figuring out this capitalism thing pretty well. Others are remaining poor, but trying to better themselves. Some people are financing all of this through the banks, and many others are doing it on their own. Class frictions are growing everyday, as some of these indigenous migrants are hitting a gold mine within urban commerce and real estate, while exploiting othe...

One of the areas that is much more interesting architecturally are the ‘laderas’ of La Paz, the hillsides where people have been building like crazy, often illegally. This is basically the interstitial zone between the main commercial district of La Paz and the city of El Alto . The implications are tremendous as not only are people destroying valuable vegetation, but the buildings are slowly getting taller and taller. Unfortunately, the place where density is increasing on the hillsides, is just where it shouldn’t be. La Paz ’s hillsides are almost like gravel. When vegetation is destroyed, much of the rainwater permeates and then filters out lower down the hills, often causing collapses and destruction in mudslides and such. At the very least, the majority of people have water entering into their homes when it rains. I must say, the hillsides are pretty extraordinary, and again, the majority of the houses are built on inclines over 45 degrees! But, ...

There were many interesting connections that come together in Amsterdam . One of threads that quickly became apparent to me was how squatting (and the ideals and realities they were exposing) in the 80’s and 90’s are now very intertwined with the new lifestyle of modern housing in Amsterdam . For all the information on the squats, I am deeply indebted to David Carr Smith, and his web book: Improvised Houses of Amsterdam and all the wonderful information he has unearthed and communicated. There are three buildings in which I uncovered some interesting relationships. Edelweis The first is Edelweis. This amazing industrial building is on the KMSN island and is surrounded by new buildings and housing, as this part of the Eastern Docklands development in the late 1990’s. As the shipping industry was transformed and the harbor moved to another part of the city, old industrial land was left. This beautiful building would certainly have been destroyed had squatters not occupi...