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.

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. 

Pedregulho and Context On the way to the Metro Pedregulho entrance Studio favela edge favela edge favela upgrading While in Rio , I visited Pedregulho housing, designed by Affonso Eduardo Reidy and built around 1950. It has 6 floors and 272 apartments. It is quite a contrast to anything around there, and neatly connects with the terrain as it weaves around the hillside. The third floor offers is open and offers a great experience of moving into the building, and then gains a commanding view of the surrounding neighborhood, which off to one side consists of a very dense fabric of favelas. However, they both seem to relate to each other, with the colors, and texture of lived in buildings. There, I initially saw two options on where to get involved on the housing issues for architects and planners. And that was a tough option. Pedregulho (architect’s disregard for people’s lives) on the left and the favelas (state and society’s disregard for people...

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...

Duplexes with expansion zones Lo Espejo was the second completed ELEMENTAL project. The community was living in a campamento (squatted and shabby housing of minimal materials) near the location of the new project in Santiago. Once again, ELEMENTAL proposed building half the house, and allowing a Typical housing in the neighborhood good bit of freedom for customization and such. After working closely with the community, ELEMENTAL proposed two schemes and the community agreed and selected one. Because Santiago has a much rainier climate, the roof over the entire project had to be built first. This project differed with Quinta Monroy in the fact that the government essentially funded the additions, and the homes were able to be completely built out at the beginning. Johana, in front of her ´perfect´house I spoke with Johana, one of the community leaders. After taking the bus all over town and finally finding the project, I was early and decided to draw a bit and wander arou...

Varying facades 5 years later Before and after facades on Galvanrino St. Elevation on Pedro Prado. This project served as one of the inspirations for my initial proposal on incremental housing. By looking at how architects could play a significant role in helping people improve their housing without taking away their agency, the architectural group ELEMENTAL, in conjunction with the Chilean government, has contributed significantly to the discourse of social housing. The first project in Iquique, on a site called Quinta Monroy explored the question of how to provide a basic quality house, for only $7,500. Their answer was to provide half of the house. And if only half, which half would it be? Working closely with a community of squatters that had lived precariously on an urban site, the architects developed a set of rules, by which people could still have a lot of capacity to live their lives and have their homes express that. The rules ensured that each unit...