the INCREMENTAL house

In the midst of all the devastation in Haiti, it is hard to imagine thinking about next steps, when I feel like i haven't even been able to process the initial event. Regardless, in thinking about how to rebuild, many ideas and conversations I have been having come back to the idea of incrementality. I decided to utilize this blog again to see what discussion this may trigger. Also, please check out the good work going on at wired.com. They have a great discussion about issues in Haiti http://haitirewired.wired.com/ It seems that intentionally planning projects to be incomplete, offers many advantages over those that are designed to be built all at once, namely that of time and money. Additionally, because most people in places like Haiti are already building incrementally (pay as you go), this approach offers a more potentially culturally sensitive and contextual approach. Finally, incremental growth may offer the greatest opportunity to shift the large scale redevelopment ...

Eloy and his family Current living quarters New house next to old house Eloy and his wife Dona Maria lived down the street and ran a store on the corner. I got to know them very well, as their store provided much needed staples such as yoghurt, bread, telephones, and chocolate. Half of the time, their two daughters, Erica and Pamela, when not in school, were running the store and listening to my phone conversations. During my time there, they were living out of basically two rooms. One room was the bedroom and everything else. Within that one room, all four of them slept along with Maria’s mother. The kids studied in there as well. Outside was the kitchen and a rudimentary toilet. They bought the plot of land in 1998 for US$10,000 and through the pooling of family resources, was able to buy two plots together (320 m^2). They moved from another part of El Alto because there were no real transportation options and places to run a business. He now belie...

I met another architect in Senkata the one day A guy was working on his bus in the middle of the street and I said hello. He said hello back and seemed pretty nice. We started talking a bit, I figured he was just another mechanic. But, he got really excited when I told him I was an architecture student. He said he was studying architecture at Universidad Publica de El Alto (UPEA). I didn’t even know they had a program there. I ran into him later and we shared pictures and designs and he showed me around his place. It had a nice intimacy and scale to it, things of which people here don’t really care that much about. But, I liked it. They had built an oven to make bread, but the competition increased and they aren’t able to keep up. Now that space essentially functions as storage. They have built half the wall on the front to eventually open up a new store. The bus that his father uses to earn money is just parked out in the street at night. It block...

One of my first nights in my room, I arrived after dark from La Paz . It is cold, windy, quiet, and sometimes seemingly desolate. Everyone had retired to the shelter of their walls. Nothing about such a place felt like home, and it was a completely different world. But, as I got out of the minibus, and started to walk down the street, a neighbor, Don Willy came flying by in his van, asking me how I was doing and where I was staying. His kids were hanging out the windows hollering at me. It was nice to see them. In the back was his wife sitting on top of a big bag of shoes. In the informal economy, Willy and his family sell used shoes. They pick them up from Chile , and sell them in markets in El Alto. I first met him when a health worker here took me out to the market to see if he had a room for rent. They were selling shoes. Later that day, as I was drawing some of the buildings in the neighborhood, I could see him using his courtyard space to wash and clean u...

The front of my home Fearless guard dogs Courtyard space Front Entry Second floor which will eventually become a restaurant I rented a room from a wonderful woman named Benigna. While the public space outside it is pretty dead and very little public/private interaction, it is much more complex and interesting once you get past the exterior walls. As Benigna was showing me around and introducing me to the neighbors (in her own plot), it was clear there was like a mini community there. Beniqna stays next to me with her daughter. Below her stays Casta. And on the bottom floor of the new building is Remejio with well, he couldn’t really tell me. Benigua said 10, as I looked through the crack and saw at least 4 kids peaking through, getting a peak at the gringo. Remejio said they had a squadron, and he never quite knew how many. Building at the back of the lot where my room was My building was on the back of a lot. This is where Beniqna stays next to me...

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...

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....