the INCREMENTAL house

In 2017, ELEMENTAL, the firm that has helped pioneer incremental housing in a more more modern context has shared their drawings and construction details of the a number of their most prominent projects, including Quinta Monroy .  You can download the ABC's of Incremental Housing here . These should be used more as a reference and conceptual approach on better understanding how such buildings can and should be designed and subsequently built.  However, anyone looking to actually execute such a project should adjust the design and construction methods to meet local conditions, regulations, etc. I am grateful for ELEMENTAL for sharing this kind of open source knowledge so that such ideas may more easily be implemented instead of just talked about.  With that said, it would be nice to see some conclusions on what worked well and what didn't.  While I know later projects by ELEMENTAL were variations of Quinta Monroy, sharing a constructive critique and analysis o...

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/world/middleeast/cairo-mural-garbage.html?module=inline Much of the informal housing around the identified by an aesthetic that is often seen as unsightly and uncontrolled, as it is one of constant change and pure utility in many cases.  And yet, in the eyes of many, particularly those who hold power, these neighborhoods often represent areas that need to be "controlled". Some recent efforts in Cairo highlight the differences in two approaches.  One approach highlighted is in this article from the New York Times, where President Sisi is wanting all buildings along the way to the pyramids to be painted, so they will look better from the main road, with the expectation that buildings owners would pay for it.   When I drove along the road to the pyramids many years ago, I was astounded by the scale and pace of the farmland being converted into housing, much of it unregulated in Giza.  And yet, in the midst of it, people...

Check out this fascinating video , highlighting Bolivia's "Indigenous Bourgeoisie" , which is growing signficanlty with Evo Morales continued tenure are President and a growing economy.  It highlights the city of El Alto and the Andean Style architecture, which has a unique aesthetic, but uses the house in to generate and create income to help fuel the new buying power of a historically powerless population. El Alto was also the focus of my study in 2009 where I highlighted these very issues. 

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. 

  Driving down US-19 from Bryson City to Cherokee, NC, there exists a campground that is unique even for Western North Carolina.  While it is not uncommon to see RV's with permanent roofs built over them, this particular campground in the small community of Ella was extraordinary because so many of the structures, as well as the community itself, had become permanent. Most campgrounds of this sort provide summer havens for people from the deep south.  In the summer, they can bring their homes up to the cooler mountains, and then in winter, they can take them back where it is warmer.  However, many people now live in this community permanently, as they have found a way to exand their living space while not having to pay the high costs of land and materials typicaly in many houses in Western North Carolina.

20k house Last year, I took a trip to Hale County, Alabama.  My goal was to connect with Pam Dorr, the director of HERO (Hale Empowerment and Revitalization Organization).  We arrived one spring day just in time for lunch, and she suggested we get some catfish at the local gas station, Mustang Oil. Soon, the four of us has ballooned into 10 people.  We ran into the local judge, and some long term and short term locals soon joined us, including a filmmaker from Maine, and a psychiatrist from California who has set up a live-in farm as an alternative to an institution.  Heading into the gas station, it seemed like catfish and oil would make strange bedfellows.  But, I was quick to discover it was a good one, and that Hale County was full of such unlikely combinations.