A Slum (Hi)story

8/13/2019 A Slum (Hi)story

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ASlum (Hi)story.

Kaegh Allen 4263359

History Thesis 2013



IntroductionSlumming it.



Slum, Shanty Town, Favela, Rookery, Gecekondu, Skid Row,Barrio, Ghetto, Bidonville, Taudis, Bandas De Miseria,

Barrio Marginal, Morro, Loteamento, Barraca, Musseque,Tugurio, Solares, Mudun Safi, Karyan, Medina Achouaia,

Brarek, Ishash, Galoos, Tanake, Baladi, Hrushebi, Chalis,Communas, Katras, Zopadpattis, Bustee, Estero, Looban,

Dagatan, Umjondolo, Watta, Udukku, Chereka Bete.

Te name changes but the situations are the airly similar. Over the last fify years theevolution o what happens to these irregular settlements has evolved, and their place insociety shifed.

Tese settlements are no longer only treated as breeding grounds or crime, illness anddespair, o course this is sometimes true, but what they are now proving to provide are

alternative, versatile and resilient ways o constructing our everchanging cityscapes.

As part o this history thesis I plan to walk a specific timeline, rom post war Europe tocontemporary India and South America – looking at perspective changes in the dealingo issues o slums, and the important actors along the way. Alongside this historical andgeographical analysis there will be a personal journey undertaken in 2013, party due tomy studies at U Delf and party ueled by a passion to learn more about the situations othe urban poor in cities around the world today.

Te aim o this thesis is to highlight a shif in emphasis rom perectionist mdoersnist visions to a contemporary acceptance o impereection. Although many o the changes

that are most compelling or me about this issue have occurred in the last decade thereare very important historical rameworks that have allowed architecture to have such animportant role in the discussion and have perhaps diverted the ocus rom the real issuesinvolved.

Te historical analysis will aim to set out the series o events and decisions that occurredduring and afer the second world war in Europe and the USA that lead to the creationo systems o public housing that have now proven to be flawed. A urther explorationwill look at how these systems are being replicated in developing countries which differso greatly socially, economically and geographically rom the places that created these

models. Finally there will be a look at how these ideas have been processed, changed andutilized by an ever more desperate and ingenious urban population.Troughout this narrative there will be leaps o ideas and time rames and a specialattention paid to the polarity o approaches in the western/northern ‘first’ world and theeastern/southern ‘third world’ and a look at what has been learnt and what can now beimplemented.Tis is accompanied by a personal journey that will recount experiences and anecdotesrom visits to slums in Ahmedabad and Mumbai, India, also avellas in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil and Medellin, Colombia and social housing projects in London, UK and Chicago,USA - all taken during the year o 2013 as part o personal research or this thesis.

What ollows is a short and personal slum (hi)story.



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Chapter : 1Europe & USA

‘‘It’s not the architecture that failed.’’



Te word ‘slum’ has its origins in England in the 1920s. It had become common slang tomean ‘low going-ons’ or shady situations in back taverns and eating houses.Charles Dickens used the word slum in a similar way in 1840, writing “I mean to take agreat, London, back-slum kind walk tonight”. 1 But the most important first use o the

word came in 1850 when the Catholic Cardinal Wiseman described the area known asDevil’s Acre in Westminster, London as ollows:

“Close under the Abbey o Westminster there lie concealed labyrinths o lanes andcourts, and alleys and slums, nests o ignorance, vice, depravity, and crime, as well as osqualor, wretchedness, and disease; whose atmosphere is typhus, whose ventilation ischolera; in which swarms o huge and almost countless population, nominally at least,Catholic; haunts o filth, which no sewage committee can reach – dark corners, which nolighting board can brighten.”1

Tis passage was widely quoted in the national press, leading to the popularisation o theword slum to describe bad housing. Tis word has now been widely accepted and theconnotations that it carries exacerbated.Slum clearance started as a social movement in London, UK during the 1920s and 30swith the aim o replacing unsatisactory, overcrowded and unsanitary housing withmodern accommodation. Tis was intensified during and afer the war due to an initialneed to house actory workers but then also to re-house all o the population that hadtheir housing damaged and destroyed due to the bombings and wear o the war.Tis mass housing strategy, o preabricated quick build concrete tower blocks continuedwell through the 1950s and 60s. Tese council blocks, project towers and mass housingworked momentarily, providing new affordable housing and uturistic dreams to people

that had never thought it possible. But many things beyond their pure architectural meritwere ar more crucial to their sustainable survival.

Notorious icons such as Pruitt Igoe (East St. Louis, USA), Robin Hood Gardens (London,UK) and Cabrini Green (Chicago, USA) slowly deteriorated and ell apart as the dreamthat held them together became evidently corrupt, racist and negligent. Te west wasnow lef with an industrial wasteland o abandoned towers that reeked ailure and wastedideals.

‘Modern architecture died in St Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972 at 3.32 pm (or

thereabouts) when the inamous Pruitt-Igoe scheme, or rather several o its slab blocks,were given the final coup de grace by dynamite. Previously it had been vandalized,mutilated and deaced by its black inhabitants, and although millions o dollars werepumped back, trying t keep it alive (fixing the broken elevators, repairing smashedwindows, repainting), it was finally put out o its misery. Boom, boom, boom.’2

But was it bad architecture to blame?

As writer o the Failed Architecture blog describes ‘‘it’s not the architecture that ailed. Iit was, then the Barbican owers would be deemed ailures. Park Hill and rellick ower

would still be considered design catastrophes.Te cause o Pruitt-Igoe’s descent into its nightmare and final destruction was the ailure



in the social support and a ailure to maintain the buildings abric not the concept oYamaraki’s design.’3

But perhaps what is currently still most disturbing is that these exact same models arestill being replicated all over the world - with similar repercussions. Te circumstances

that have placed people in them is only slightly different but the outcome is eventually amirror. Grey, Alone and Unhappy.In his seminal book, ‘Planet o Slums’ Mike Davis sets out an almost apocalyptic visiono the cities o the uture. By the end o the first chapter the scene is set; “In 1950 therewere 86 cities in the world with a population o more than one million ... by 2015 therewill be at least 550”; and “For 10,000 years urban societies have struggled against deadlyaccumulation o their own waste”; and “neo-liberal capitalism since 1970 has multipliedDickens’s notorious slum...By exponential powers. Residents o slums, while only 6% othe city population o the developed countries, constitute a staggering 78.2% o urbanitesin the least-developed countries”; and “China ... added more city-dwellers in the 1980s

than did o all Europe (including Russia) in the entire 19th century!”4

Tese act are staggering but not entirely surprising, they affirm realities that are ever-present but easily ignored.

According to UN-HABIA, around 33% o the urban population in the developingworld in 2012, or about 863 million people, lived in slums.oday, more people live in urban areas than rural areas and city populations are growingby more than 200,000 new inhabitants each day.Cities in developing countries are expected to absorb 95 per cent o urban populationgrowth in the next two decades, increasing the slum population by nearly 500 million

between now and 2020.Cities account or some 70 per cent o global GDP and city slums are ofen economically

vibrant; around 85 per cent o all new employment opportunities around the world occurin the inormal economy.

In 2003 UN-HABIA defines a slum household as a group o individuals living underthe same roo in an urban area who lack one or more o the ollowing:

1. Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climateconditions.

2. Sufficient living space which means not more than three people sharing the sameroom.3. Easy access to safe water in sufficient amounts at an affordable price.4. Access to adequate sanitation in the form of a private or public toilet shared by a

__reasonable number of people.5. Security of tenure that prevents forced evictions.5

In Savage Inequality by Jonathan Kozol he describes the situation in East St. Louisin 1991, with poverty, racial segregation and lack o resources that make this smallAmerican city wallow is third world level plight. In Kozol’s descriptions many areas o

East St. Louis would be considered a slum according to UN-HABIA definitions.



“Nobody is East St. Louis...has ever had the clout to raise a protest. Why Americanspermit this is so hard or somebody like me, who grew up in the real Tird World,to understand...I’m rom India. In Calcutta this would be explicable, perhaps. I keepthinking to mysel, ‘My God! Tis is the United States!”6

Tis definition is also challenged in the introduction o the book by Urban Tink ankand Iwan Baan - ‘orre David’, here the UN-HABIA definition is urther challengedlooking at comparisons o squatter movements o the 80s and 90s in European citiessuch as Copenhagen, London, Berlin and Amsterdam which created situations wherepeople were living in squalid, overcrowded and insecure conditions. And this is all in thedeveloped, ‘first’ world, in our lietime.

A clear and important example can be drawn rom the Freetown o Christiania inCopenhagen. Founded and claimed in 1971 rom an abandoned military barracks,

Christiania has survived and grown as a people’s commune in Copenhagen’s east district.It is declared ‘Te Freetown’. Opting out o Danish laws and regulations has generatedan “experiment in living”. It has also generated riction with states authorities. Yet todayChristiania survives as an embodiment o ‘counter-culture’ and local sel-governance.Te 850 residents have their own police orce, currency and democratic process. Againstthe odds – squashed within a burgeoning metropolitan capital – this community hasdeclared their own independence and took charge o their own affairsAnother interesting example ound in the Netherlands are the recently implemented‘Scum Villages’. Te mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, implemented this controversialnew policy to tackle antisocial behaviour early in 2013. Te scheme places consistentlymisbehaving amilies in isolated shipping container housing in industrial regions o

Amsterdam. Tis isolation seems slightly counterproductive, i anything can be learnabout the societies on irregular cities it is that community responsibility is the mostimportant actor to maintain peace. As Jane Jacobs explained a constant movement omembers through a community not only places the architectural elements under greatstrain and ‘wear out with disproportionate swifness’ but also creates a community that is‘in a perpetually embryonic state, or perpetually regressing to helpless inancy.’7

What is occurring in the inormal settlements o the developing world is becoming evermore o an intellectual obsession, especially in the field o Architecture. Te reasons orthis are twoold. Either we would like to strive to change them, or we think we can learn

rom them. Tese comparisons are very important to remember in our current situation,as the developed west slowly re-emerges rom an huge economic crisis perhaps thereshould be a reappraisal at how we are dealing with our economic and housing sector.As explained in the opening o ‘Inormal city – Caracas case’ there is an importance inmaking a contrast between ‘the stereotypical European image o the barrios as places ouncertainty and chaos with the potential o these inormal urban districts in terms ocivil society and culture’8

Te Homeruskwartier district in Almere, a city with a population o 180,000, is the firstsel-build project attempted on a truly large scale in Europe. Since 2006, sel-builders

have erected 800 homes, and thousands more are on the way. Similarly in the USAthere are organizations such as Rural Studio, a program in which architectural students



are trained to design and build in teams or undeserved communities in very poorneighbourhoods in Alabama, who are trying to create an applicable system that createspossible alternatives to current mass housing scenarios. Another equally simple yetradical project comes in the orm o Bel Architects project ‘Grunbau und Siedler’ as part

o the International Building Exhibition (IBA) in Hamburg in 2010. Te project takesa basic concrete structure reminiscent o Le Corbusier’s Domino house and presentsuture users with a DIY manual. Te inhabitant is required to buy only the basic plotin the building, with all inrastructural connections already installed and the given theinstructions to complete the rest themselves.What is key about these processes is making the end user involved in the process andmaking them responsible through making them collaborators and not just receivers.Likewise there should perhaps be a reappraisal o the importance o regulations inEuropean countries - especially in the UK where grade listing and character preservationhave long caused nonsensical decisions to be made in housing redevelopment and

preservation.A clear example arose in the press in summer 2013 when a young ‘Eco-Couple’ builtthe house on private land in Glandwr, North Pembrokeshire were told to tear downtheir completely sustainable and sel-built home, because ‘the benefits o a low-impact development do not outweigh the harm to the character and appearance o thecountryside.’9

Tis is drastically contrasted to recent attention paid to England’s 21st Century slums,these ‘sheds with beds’ are hidden at the end o suburban gardens in east London and arebasic, poorly built and ofen illegal - but present in their thousands.Here we are lef with a subtle problematic. Tese crippling legislations that are suffocating

development in such rural, secluded areas are also orcing this type o construction ininner city areas. Perhaps energies could be better spent o acilitating, educating andmaintaining this sort o construction to be made to an acceptable level?Tese bottom up, community lead processes are much more worthwhile than the top-down social housing o the last decades. Tese project perhaps have not been urtherexplored in ‘developed’ countries because there is a certain acceptance o shortcomings,and incompleteness in the third world that would be seen as weakness and ailure in thefirst.What ever the reason they seem ar more sustainable and educated than current firstworld techniques, which lead to a deep and powerless indifference to the place that you

live and call ‘home’ - home is where the heart is, not where the planners are.

Tese ideas are surprisingly still not resonating with planners in even the mostcontemporary o cities, one large-scale and very important example is the currentdevelopment o Te Chicago Lakeside Development in South Chicago.Te Chicago Lakeside Development is a proposed redevelopment o about 600-acres onthe ormer U.S. Steel SouthWorks site on the South Side o Chicago, lying about 16kmsouth o Downtown. Te project is one o the largest urban regeneration project in theUSA in recent history and is dealing with a site larger than the amous ‘L’ o downtownChicago. Te plan calls or 13,575 new homes, 1,630,000 m2 o retail, including huge

warehouse stores and other commercial spaces, a new high school, a slip marina, a publicpark and lake ront access.



Te Chicago Lakeside Development Master Plan will take an estimated 25 to 45 years tocomplete and will cost more than $4 billion in both public and private unds.

“When you think about the scale, and the act that it’s been 25 years since that

community was basically abandoned, with respect to a job-maker this thing has gotenormous potential consequences,”

Dan McCaffery - Developer 10

“I it’s nice, shiny and new, I don’t see why they’d include us, they’ve never included us inany particular way beore, so, you don’t have enough people with the education to have

the jobs to afford to buy the houses out here.”Mike Medrano - Resident 10

It is difficult to see this project succeeding, and although perhaps not surprising to see

this kind o generic approach being implemented in the United States o America - whatis surprising are the lack o viable alternatives. At the crux o the matter, it is pushing orideals that are already outdated and problematic and aiming that they will be held as truein hal a century. Te main issue with the project seems to be one o investment. Te onlyway to be able to regenerate the area is to gain private investment to build monolithicand expensive commercial and residential buildings that claim to be sustainablethrough green technologies but actually completely ignore issues about the surroundingneighbourhood. Making their integration impossible and completely ignoring issues opoverty, community and growth - which does not seem so sustainable, in the end.

What was previously unacceptable is now being scrutinized as a new alternative. Te

death o Modernism may be recurring as Charles Jencks describes (over and over withthe demolition or even re-appropriation o their icons ) but the deep rooted ideals thatallowed such moral ailures to occur are still very much in place.Enrique Peñalosa describes that ‘in many countries, the institutional set-up does notavour equality.’11 But change has to be made and it has to come quickly, ‘Such projectsin Sao Paulo, Mumbai or Istanbul, are rarely comortable academic exercises. Tey aredriven by violent change and instability.’12 Tese areas o crisis are the testing grounds ornew ways o developing cities and housing that is flexible and robust enough to be learnrom and transplanted to our first world comorts.

But will we be brave enough to try, beore it is too late?

1. Wikipedia. Slum. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slum2. Jencks, C. 2011. Te Story o Post-Modernism.Wiley, New York.3. Failed Architecture. 2013. http://ailedarchitecture.com/2013/06/pruitt-igoe-is-ailed-architecture-central-to-the-architectural-

proession/#ixzz2iSeyZ9il4. Davis, M. 2007. Planet o Slums. Verso. London.5. UN-HABIA. 2005. http://www.unhabitat.org/documents/media_centre/sowcr2006/SOWCR%205.pd 6. Kozol, J. 1991. Savage Inequalities. Harper. New York.7. Jacobs,J. 1961. Te Death and Lie o Great American Cities. Random House. New York.8. Feireiss, K. Brillembourg, A. Klumpner, H. 2005. Inormal City: Caracas Case. Prestel, New York.9. Daily Mail. 2013. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2382684/Charlie-Hague-Megan-Williams-told-pull-hobbit-home-

entirely-natural-materials.html10. WBEZ 91.5 Radio, Chicago. http://www.wbez.org/sections/art/southeast-side-will-new-community-rise-old-south-works-steel-

site-10744311. UN-HABIA. 2010. Bridging the Urban Divide. http://www.unchs.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=301612. Burdett, R. Sudjic, D. 2011. Living in the Endless City. PHAIDON. New York.



B. ‘Scum Village’ : Amsterdam’s solution or unrully citizens.

A. Christiania Window House : Sel-Built and unique.



D. Sheds With Beds : London’s 21st Century Slums.

C. ‘Grunbau und Siedler’ : Incremental housing in Hamburg.





E: Pruitt Igoe : Te Death o Modernism- 1950



Chapter : 2India

‘One Man’s Rubish is another Man’s Treasure’



“Using and reusing to find new meaning, that is Te Indian way”

Balkrishna Doshi - International Habitat Workshop, 2013.

In Architecture Depends, Jeremy ill describes that architecture relies on a semblance oorder set out by Vitruvius; COMMODIY : FIRMNESS : DELIGH. He goes on urtherto describe the importance o beauty, cleanliness and order as occupying ‘‘a specialposition amongst the requirements o civilization’’1 as set out by Sigmund Freud.Tese observations are topped off by a look at Le Corbusier and his approach to dealingsurgically with the unhealthy tissue o cities.One example that is looked at is Pessac, the town near Bordeaux, in France, where LeCorbusier designed and built a community o 51 houses in the 1920’s. ill explains thati Le Corbusier visited the community in 1964 he would have ound things completelydifferent. Appropriation and customization had occurred ‘open terraces had been filled

in. Steel strip windows replaced with divided timber ones complete with vernacularshutters. Pitched roos added over leaky flat ones. Stick on bricks, moorish eatures,windowsills, and other orms o decoration applied over the original stripped walls. All inall, a straightorward defilement o the master’s guiding principles by an ungrateul, evenunworthy public.’1

Henri Leevre explained ‘that in Pessac Le Corbussier produced a kind o architecturethat lends itsel to conversion and sculptural ornamentation...and what did the occupantsadd?...Teir needs’ Te acceptance o these needs and the orward thinking that wouldhave allowed included in the design the ability or users to manipulate the models omodernisms was perhaps all part o Le Corbusiers grand plan, but in any case it definitelyrubbed off on one o his disciples.

Balkrishna Doshi an Indian architect, planner and educator. worked or our yearsbetween 1951-54 with Le Corbusier in Paris. Afer this time B. V. Doshi returnedto Ahmedabad to supervise Le Corbusier’s projects. His studio, Vastu-Shilpa(environmental design), was established in 1955. Vastu-Shilpa Foundation or Studiesand Research in Environmental Design has been instrumental in the development andeducation o the architectural discourse in India. VSF has also done pioneering work inlow cost housing and city planning.‘Doshi is considered one o the leading exponents o appropriate technology, whilstalso being a key figure in the development o a modern Indian architecture, combining

modernist influences with traditions rom the East, specifically Doshi’s interest in Hinduphilosophy. Te name o the practice reers to the Vāstu-Shilpā Shastras, the Hindumetaphysical design philosophy based on a system o rules related to the environment,cosmology, proportion and directional alignment. He is also a ounding member othe Vāstu-Shilpā Foundation, a non-profit research institution that deals with issues osustainable design, appropriate technology, vernacular architecture and urbanism.During the 1960s, India promoted a policy o regional industrialisation, where newactories with associated housing were to be built on the outskirts o existing townsor close to local villages. In this context, Vāstu-Shilpā developed a methodology ordesigning new townships which combined the demands o a growing economy with

traditional skills and modes o living: preabricated concrete elements were mixed withlocal materials and craf skills and a number o typologies o housing were designed that



could be added to and adapted by the inhabitants.It was Vāstu-Shilpas organisational structure o a research institution affiliated to adesign practice that allowed them to produce a design so well suited to the needs osquatter amilies. Tey were commissioned by the Indian government to spend a period

o intensive research on such settlements gaining a thorough understanding o theirphysical, social and economic structures, a knowledge that was then applied to the designwork.”2

One seminal project or VSF was Aranya. Aranya (which means “orest”) is a sites-and-services township or 40,000 people in Indore, Madhya Pradesh State. Sites-and-servicesproject like Aranya place the bulk o investment is spent on land and inrastructure.‘‘Te township incorporates a variety o income groups on an 85 hectare site, where basicinrastructure, including electricity, water and drainage are provided. Whilst in someinstances whole houses were built, or poorer amilies there were a range o options,including purchasing a plot only; a plot with a plinth to build on; or a built ‘service core’

o kitchen, wash-room and an additional room. Here owners could add to the giveninrastructure at their own pace and with down payments related to the average incomeo each amily, the Aranya project tried to create a model o housing which could beafforded by those with very ew resources.’’2

While the VSF designed the master plan or the settlement, residents were lef to buildtheir own houses incrementally. Aranya is also a mixed-income settlement, meaning thatthe economically weaker sector have the same initial resources as wealthier neighbours,the main change comes in plot size and location.

Tis project intentionally set out what perhaps accidentally occurred in Pessac sometwenty years earlier. It gave prospective residents a ground oundation slab, a staircase

and then a kit o parts and ideas to allow the house to grow and develop incrementally asamilies grow and wealth increases.Tese ideas o incremental growth are not exactly new. As describes in ‘Cities inransition’ a conversation between artist and activist Marjetica Potrc and architecturalcurator Andres Lepika3 there had been interest in ideas o incremental housing asearly as 1932 with an Exhibition organized by Martin Wagner in Berlin entitled ‘TeGrowing House’ in which various architects at the time like Walter Gropius, ErichMendleson, Max and Bruno aut were engaged in projects o incremental housing.Tis experimentation came as result o the great depression and the end o ‘the goldentwenties’ where now there was a great need o low-income housing in suburban regions

o cities. With flexible, small scale plots that could be adapted to changing amily andcommunity needs. But this all came to an end when the Nazis took power. And then dueto the results o the destruction that en-sewed in European city centres, once the warwas over there was a clear and urgent need or mass housing at unprecedented scalesand speeds, thus the ideals o gentle incrementation were washed away by industrializedhabitation requirements.Only now afer yet another, much smaller, global crisis and reappraisal has therebeen an interest in these methods. Very ew projects o this kind exist in the westernworld. Perhaps it is due to planning regulations and excessive preoccupation withneighbourhood characteristics.

What occurs in Aranya is a wonderul appropriation o each module and a beautiullylayered and personalized set o homes that fit real needs. Clearly it is a testament to



Doshi’s design that there was still some memory o the original lef in each house, givingthe neighbourhood permanent sense o closure and identity.Tis flexibility in design is ofen the most problematic issue when dealing witharchitecture especially social housing - i you make it hard, people want to move it.

Jeremy ill explains that garbage and building are inextricably related, “ALLARCHIECURE IS BU WASE IN RANSI!’1 Tis is never more true than ininormal settlements where garbage is more ofen than not used as building material.rue Sustainability.He explains that Marco Polo states about the city o Leonia (where the streets are cleanedevery night, the visitors enjoy the glory in the morning but ignore the growing rubbishheaps surrounding the city). ‘‘One can have permanent newness, but it is an illusion.It comes at a price, and that price is the making permanent o rubbish, a ate worse,perhaps, than the ephemeral charms o progress.’’1

Tis puts into questions many issues about value. In Michael Tompson’s book RubbishTeory - he claims that architecture denotes two categories, transient and permanent.‘‘Objects in the transient category decrease in value over time and have finite lie-spans.Objects in the durable category increase in value over time and have (ideally) infinite lie-spans.’’1 A third category is proposed, rubbish. As in contemporary times transient objects/building reach a level o such low value that they become worthless, and this occurs asterthan ever beore. Conversely one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure, and with somuch waste generated now the possibility to turn rubbish into permanent and durablematerial.Tese ideas I think are key when speaking about the contemporary urban situation, and

this is seen most clearly is inormal settlements.

Tis acceptance that the worth or building change and that needs also change was themost important aspect o what I learnt during my participation in the Vastu ShilpaHabita Workshop.Te key aspect and realization o the workshop was accepting the limits o architectureand providing an alternative ‘masterplan’. Among the various groups that were presentduring the workshop one that struck me as the most interesting was one that dealt simplywith the idea o shared ownership. Something that is seen occasionally in western newbuilds but never seen in irregular settlements because the idea o survival is too deeply

ingrained - each is out or their own.

Te project did not propose an architectural masterplan. It proposed a tool-kit o ideasthat illustrated the potential benefits o neighbours, combining unds and energy andbuilding together. Tis example is one that pushes the idea o participatory designone step urther as U describe in their opening to the Slum Lab Magazine Issue 8‘Knowledge must be open-source. Architecture despite it’s reputation as being a producto the creative whim, is a collective and collaborative act’’ 3

Tese ideas are also very well shown in the work o URBZ. Te collective set up by Rahul

Srivastava and Matias Echanove has the slogan o ‘User Generated Cities’.



A. Aranya. 1989 : Incremental Housing



‘For URBZ, Dharavi is a kind o laboratory where a new bottom-up, sel-organisationalapproach to urban design can be bred’4

Teir approach is one o collecting and documenting rather that implementing and

building. Tis inevitably leads to an amazing array o inormation about communityand social inrastructure that is invaluable and essential or the development o urbanprojects, especially in complex inormal situation.

One project that highlights this is their study o the building that houses their office -Te ool House. Tis building is a flexible, and sel built house in the illegal settlement oDharavi in Mumbai. Te project simply yet extremely thoroughly highlight the makeupo the house, explain its construction process and incremental development and thenshows the past, current and potential uture uses. It seems almost too basic inormationor architectural worth but as described this waste will soon become invaluable and as

cities continue to grow and inormal becomes the norm - these will be the guidelinesthat shape cities.A ‘slum ree India’ has been on the agenda o governments or the last decade and hascreated the ormation o various authorities to try and deal with the issue. Te SlumRehabilitation Authority (SRA) is one o these organizations that was set up in 1995 andis the leading authority on slum up-gradation and redevelopment.Te SRA states that there are 3 types o slum up-gradation currently practiced:

* Under provisions o DCR 33(10) also called in-situ scheme.* Provisions o section 3.11 also called PAP scheme.* Under provisions o DCR 33(14) also called transit scheme.5

What is surprising and complex about these approached is the set o regulations thatthey incur, they ofen create more problems than solutions. Situations arise where peopleare stuck in a limbo where they cannot improve their home because i it is seen as beingtoo ‘permanent’ in an inormal settlement then it may be torn down.O course the issues are complex but when slum up-gradation is implemented then itshould aim to maintain as much o the original characteristics and DNA that made thatcommunity autonomous and independent.

‘‘Successul unslumming means that enough people must have an attachment to the slum

that they wish to stay, and it also means that it must be practical or them to stay’’ Jane Jacobs - Activist. 6

1. ill, J. 2009. Architecture Depends. MI Press, London.2. Spatial Agency. 2013. http://www.spatialagency.net/database/balkrishna.doshi3. Feireiss. L et. al. 2013. Slum Lab. Sustaiinable Living Urban Model/Issue 8. EH Zurich.

4. Domus. issue 995. 2012. http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2012/02/13/urbz-crowdsourcing-the-city.html5. SRA. 2012. http://www.sra.gov.in/pgeRehabiliSchemes.aspx6. Jacobs,J. 1961. Te Death and Lie o Great American Cities. Random House. New York.



B. Te Urbz ool House : A well documented example o simple living.

D. RSA Housing Blocks : Leading to Vertical Slums.



HOUSE CATALOG

2300

1700

2100

6300

1000

1800

8000mm 2800mm 3400mm 3400mm3200

2800mm

2800mm

N

105002000 1800

2800

9500 2000

3400mm

N

C. House Catalogue : Example o Beore and Afer or 8 dwellings.

E. Rubish House : Yogeshwar Nagar, Ahmedabad



Chapter : 3South America

‘Uma Pequena Revolução’.



‘’Terein lies the historic error o urban planners and designers and o architects:they ail to see, let alone analyse or capitalize upon, the inormal aspects o urban lie

because they lack a proessional vocabulary or describing them.”Henry Russell Hitchcock.1

Te inormal city as an intellectualized terminology is nothing new as has been seenbeore but the first time I ever came across the term was with Urban Tink anks -Inormal City, Caracas case. In the introduction to the book they define that in order tobe able to speak about this issue we need to remove the derogatory terminology rom thediscussion - removing vocabulary such as slum, squat, economically depressed, etc.

Tis acceptance o the inormal, chaotic and uncontrolled as an acceptable urbanphenomenon is now a vital part o contemporary urban development.Looking at examples in Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and Medellin one can see that there are

just simply too many people to re-house and an unwilling acceptance is occurring withsolutions that try to justiy and disguise this resignation rom governments.Urban Tink ank make a ‘call to action to our ellow architects, and all those who hopeto become architects, to see in the inormal settlements o the world the potential orinnovation and experimentation, and to put their design talents in service to a moreequitable and sustainable uture’

Te range o techniques recently implemented in improving these inormal communitiesrange greatly depending on the situation - many o the most critically acclaimed haverecently taken place in South America.Te continent has a huge amount o inormal settlements, with close to 30% o the

population living in some inormal community. Te political, geographic and socialextremity o these communities mean that even airy light changes can have a largeimpact. Painting, wrapping in paper and even miniaturization - all deal with airlyaesthetic solutions - short term and low impact. Many o these projects which arecurrently occurring in the inamous avellas o Rio de Janeiro. Projects such as FavellaPainting by Dutch artists Haas&Hahn (Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn) that aimedat adding colour and unity to irregular developments or the French artist JR’s large-scaled photographic pasting projects, such as ‘Women are Heroes’ which emphasizes theimportant role o women in these desperate situations or also project Morrinho’s projectwhich they claim is ‘Uma Pequena Revolução’. (a small revolution) o creating toy town

miniatures o their surrounding avellas, to educate and give pride to the community.Tese all address the issue through art - not architecture, but have gained notorietythrough press coverage and although their ‘change’ is minimal their success is granted atsimply opening a positive dialogue in places o previous despair and despondency.Tey give pride, and that is enough.

Slightly more time consuming and difficult to implement are inrastructural andarchitectural ‘‘accupunctural’’ inputs that try and act as anchors o change. ake UrbanTink ank’s work in Caracas, Venezuela or the Libraries and Sports Complexes o PlanB, Giancarlo Mazzanti and Paisajes Emerjentes architects in Medellin, Colombia or the

incremental housing stratergies o Elemental in Iquique, Chile.All are amazingly effective architectural projects.





In Medellin, Colombia the mayor Serjio Fajardo proclaimed in 2005 that “Our mostbeautiul buildings, must be in our poorest areas.”2 and with this simple redistributiono wealth and hope he has slowly turned one o the world’s most dangerous cities into ashining example o progressive urban renewal.

Visiting these projects one can really see that the power that they emit does not onlycome rom their architectural beauty or their programmatic genius (although aestheticsis important) but it is something much more humble. Tey simply provide an other way.

In these places where powerlessness leads to hopelessness leads to violence by placingthese institutions there is another door opened and seeing young children queuing up toread comics, go on the internet or go swimming, while their older brothers and sistershide in shadows selling drugs or their bodies - it seems like an clear solution.Tey give people something to be proud o in their neighbourhoods and also simply justsomething to do.

Te success o these projects come by accepting inormality and working with thecommunity to organize, mobilize and eventually legalize. A long but extremelyworthwhile journey.

Another seminal project that has been implemented in Medellin, Caracas and Rio deJaneiro has been the cable car, metro-cable or eleérico. In Medellin the metrocablewas implemented in 2004 in Santo Domingo, and carries 30,000 people daily and is ullyintegrated to the metro system. In 2010 U lead metro-cable in Caracas in San Agustínopened which was also integrated with the metro and has a current average use o 1,200passengers per hour.In 2011 Rio de Janeiro became the third city in South America to use the metro cable

in Complexo do Alemão in the North Zone o the city. Te system was inspired by thesuccess o the metro-cable in Medellin and cost the city o Rio R$210 million (roughly120 million US dollars) the system was only integrated to the inrequent suburban railnetwork, boast the capability to carry up to 30,000 passengers per day, but rarely makes50% o that estimate.Upon visiting these projects the differences are stark. Where as the projects in Medellinand Caracas are part o a holistic and well implemented urban renewal, with public spaceorming an integral part o the design along inrastructural transport constructions. Teteleerico in Rio seems like a decorative gesture, the cherry on top o a less than deliciouscake.

Tese symptoms o the cable car were discussed by Te Bartlett Development PlanningUnit symposium in December 2011, the overwhelming outcome o the discussion wasthat the greatest strength o the cable car is also its most crippling weakness.Essentially it is a ast, cheap and highly visible solution. In terms o a governmentalstrategy it is perect, it can be planned, executed and celebrated within a 4 yeargovernance. But i not done careully it may also prove to be a ailure and a terrible wasteo resources in areas with the greatest o needs.

Just as ‘inormal’ is used in the discourse, Elke Krasny explains that “currently, no wordexists or the action o destroying peoples’ homes and/or expelling them rom their

homeland. We suggest the neologism ‘domicide,’ Te deliberate destruction o home...’’3

.Tis ‘domicide’ is hugely present in Rio de Janeiro as in 2013 as the Rio2016 Olympic



B. orre David: Inormal Appropriation o abandoned structure.



organizing committee evict and destroy what was only a ew years ago awarded a UnescoWorld Heritage Site status. By trying to promote it’s uture Rio is destroying it’s past.

Troughout the last ew years there seems to be a growing obsession with these extremes

o urban poverty, with these projects perhaps only highlighting ‘slum voyeurism’, ‘povertyporn’ or ‘avella chic’ but they are vital in creating an interaction between two polarworlds.Ofen large-scale, extensive and expensive project are implemented in poor communitieswith modernist ideals capitalist intent in a hope o regenerating areas and bringing inwealth, security and more wonderul architecture.But reappraisals o approaches could lead to more ruitul outcomes.Working to bring wealth rom within a community rather than imposing wealth upon it,‘those who have the least, give the most’, by harnessing energies o the communities therecan be much more, sustainable and logical improvements.

Te subtle but hugely important difference between poor, drug dealing, kids walkingaround and ‘learning’ rom neighbouring, rich, gated communities and rich, camerawielding tourists queuing up to take a tour o a avella or see it rom above by cable car.One creates resentment and loss o hope the other creates pride and aspirations.Not so difficult to choose.

During the 2012 Urbanism Symposium held at U Delf - one key idea was that us as theupcoming generation o architects should aim to NO BUILD ANYHING.And this is a clear topic in the contemporary architectural discussion with the VeniceBiennial showcasing these ideas.In 2010, the Dutch contribution was ‘Vacant NL, where architecture meets ideas’ which

calls upon the Dutch government to make use o the enormous potential o inspiring,unoccupied buildings rom the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries or innovationwithin the creative knowledge economy.Also in 2012 the German contribution was Reuse, Reduce, Recycle and then later inthe 2013 Biennial the winner o the Golden Lion was Switzerland entry o orre David,a documentation o the illegal squatting o a abandoned skyscraper in the centre oCaracas.Tese examples are recent and praised within the international architectural community,but still remain within the intellectual circles o the privileged 1%.Until issues such as squatting or sel-built housing are not more openly discussed and

placed on political and social agendas, especially in the developing world where need orhousing is desperate and built orm already exists and can be improved then the situationwill orever remain illegal, poor and unchanged.

1. UN-HABIA. 2010. Bridging the Urban Divide. http://www.unchs.org/pmss/listItemDetails.2. Baan, I. 2013. orre David: Inormal Vertical Communities. Lars Muller Publishers, Zurich.3. Feireiss. L et. al. 2013. Slum Lab. Sustaiinable Living Urban Model/Issue 8. EH Zurich.



Summary The Anti-Hero



‘Tere is this plague o sameness which is killing the human joy’Zita Cobb.1

Marco Casagrande explains that we are discovering and moving ‘towards the third

generation city’. He describes first generation city as ‘the human settlement in straightconnection with nature and dependant on nature’. Te second generation city is ‘theindustrial city. Industrialisation granted the citizens independence rom nature - amechanical environment could provide everything needed or humans. Nature was seenas something hostile - it was walled away rom the mechanical reality.‘Te third generation city is the organic ruin o the industrial city.’2

Tis acceptance o a new type o city is in general what is happening with inormalsettlements throughout the world. Tere is a ocus on local knowlwedge and intuitive andpersonal design. Casagrande claims that that ‘it is looking rom local knowledge or the

seeds o the third generation city.’But this third generation city need to ree o the shackles that it’s predecessors wererestrained by, in their essay ‘Beyond Discourse’ Schneider and ill explain that whatarchitecture requires is an “anti-hero, someone who is co-author rom the beginning,someone who actively and knowingly gives up authority’6 this ideas o the proessionaland his new role is ramed in the idea o removing architectural discourse rom thematter ‘we are less interested in whether we are living in a critical or post-critical era,because these terms circle round each other. Indeed it is the ate o all ‘post’ terms(postmodern, post-critical, post-theoretical) that they never escape the hold o the verycondition that they wish to succeed”.6

Te eye-opening work o Iwan Baan provides a visual diary o options in our ever

more connected world. In his 2013 ED talk ‘Ingenious Homes, in Unexpected Places’Baan goes on a photographic journey rom Caracas’s orre David, to a city on the waterin Nigeria, and an underground village in China. Amazing images show the resilience,perseverance and ingenuity o people building, and living in their own homes, built withlove, care and passion. He shows that there are many different types o ‘normal’ andpeople need to be given the space to find and flourish in their own normal.Homogeneous, generic landscapes ormed rom cookie cutter ideas about public housingare just simply no longer relevant.As the great collective Spatial Agency have explained that we need to begin critiquing the‘normative oundations o architetural practice’ and seriously questioning ‘the operations

o neoliberal economic policy and capitalist production that rames practice’3 we canperhaps begin by simply changing the name. No longer ‘‘architects” perhaps we can viewourselves as ‘spatial agents’ or ‘moderators o change’. Trough this initial process weremove the idea o the architect as the sole author, as having authority. Tis is not an abstract argument. I architects ‘bite the bullet’ and begin torehabilitate the idea architecture, they will also have to acknowledge that architecture isonly a minor actor in ensuring social cohesion. Tey’ll need to be humble enough toargue that without wider support rom society, the same problems that affected mass-housing projects rom the 1950s up until today will simply be repeated.And until governments, local authorities and developert are able to supply and support

these desparately needed orms o social security then the best hope or architecturalhousing solution or the mass urban poor are local, sel-built and personal.



A. Creative Commons : A contemporary constructive cummunity.



Tis rhetoric is already eeling aily old, with the proession o architecture challengingitsel in the last decade, more people, practicioners and even educational institutionschallenging the current modernist ramework that is still being flogged out - but untillthe rhetorical and hypothetical becomes more mainstream that activism, the change

must come.

‘With a world population in exess o 6,000,000,000 people, it is possible that there are abillion dwellings. O these, only a miniscule proportion was designed by architeccts; 1%

may well be overestimating. Te real challenge is to understand what goes on in the other99% o the global housing market.’’

P. Oliver. 4

Alastair Parvin, the creator o the WikiHouse, an open-source proect or commonhousing stated in his ED talk given in May 2013 ‘Design’s great project in the twentieth

century was the democratization o consumtion, design’ s great project in the twentyfirstcentury is the democratization o production, and when it comes to architecture in cities,that really matters.’5

Once production o the urban realm is given back to the citizens then a new status quoon city lie can be reached. ‘‘Te critical issue or the built environment is responsibility :who is responsible or what, and to what end?’’.4 Tis responsibility is being illegally takenby orce and violence in huge numbers and creating our world cities, in order to havesome impact or even a say in the matter we must involve ourselves - oneway or another.

“Power can be taken, but not given. Te process o taking is empowerment itsel.”3

1. Baan.I. 2013. ED alks. http://www.ted.com/talks/iwan_baan_ingenious_homes_in_unexpected_ places2. Feireiss. L. 2013. Slum Lab. Sustaiinable Living Urban Model/Issue 8. EH Zurich.3. Schneider ,. ill, J. 2011. Spatial Agency. Routledge. London. UK4. Feireiss, K. Brillembourg, A. Klumpner, H. 2005. Inormal City: Caracas Case. Prestel Publishing, New York.

5. Parvin, A. 2013. ED alk. http://www.ted.com/talks/alastair_parvin_architecture_or_the_people_by_the_people.html6. Footprint. Issue #4. 2009. http://www.ootprintjournal.org/issues/download/agency-in-architecture-reraming-criticality-in-theory-and-practice



Bibliography

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BOOKS:

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Documents

A Slum (Hi)story