the INCREMENTAL house

In the summer of 2011, I was able to return to Nairobi, as a team member of Mathare Valley slum-upgrading program.  I stopped by the Kambimoto upgrading project that I had documented in the summer of 2008, and found that it has continued to grow, adapt, and change. The Kambimoto project was a result of many years of diligent work by Pamoja Trust working with a small slum in the Mathare Valley, north of Nairobi.  The resulting housing was incremental, where each family started with a basic one bedroom, one-story space that could eventually be expanded vertically up to three stories.  In 2008, the project was still under construction, although many units had been completed and families had moved in.  In 2011, the entire project was still under development due to lack of funds, but many individual units had been expanded and the overall space had been transformed significantly.

Some thoughts related to incremental housing vs. traditional approaches in the case of Haiti. 1) People could get homes built initially much more quickly because they are building less. However, there would probably need to be as much planning up front. But once, a system or framework is in place, the planning doesn't have to go on and on, it can be tweaked for each place or context....without creating cookie cutter mass produced stuff. That is what is beautiful about it....it can take on a life of its own, and have individuality, culture, context, and place embedded in it without the architects designing it in. Also, like many good projects, there will need to be deep community involvement. Incremental housing would allow such involvement to exist, but keep it more focused and take up less time, which is critical in this case.