Architecture for Social Change

Published on January 2017 | Categories: Documents | Downloads: 52 | Comments: 0 | Views: 821
of 26
Download PDF   Embed   Report

Comments

Content

ARCHITECTURE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Amith Raj, B.arch 8th
A8304011006

1

Aim

Architectural design values make up an important part of what
influences architects and designers when they make their design decisions. However, architects
and designers are not always influenced by the same values and intentions. Value and intentions
differ between different architectural movements. It also differs between different schools of
architecture and schools of design as well as among individual architects and designers.
The differences in values and intentions are directly linked to the pluralism in design outcomes
that exist within architecture and design. It is also a big contributing factor as to how an architect
or designer operates in his/her relation to clients.
Different design values tend to have a considerable history and can be found in numerous design
movements. The influence that each design value has had on design movements and individual
designers has varied throughout history.
Aim is to portray the same in a concise and precise way highlighting the needs and importance of
architecture in social change.

Methodology
Keeping in close watch both social change and Architecture the topic is taken through the
following levels of details


Artistic aspects and self-expression



The spirit of the time



The structural, functional and material honesty



The simplicity and minimalism



Nature and organic design



The classic, traditional and vernacular aesthetics



The regionalism design value

2

CONTENTS
Introduction

4-6

Hassan Fathy: New Gourna, 1945-48

7-9

Diebedo Francis Kere: Scool in Gando, 2001

10-12

Theoritical Implications

12-14

Architecture and Industrialisation

14-21

Small Scale Big Change

21-23

Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and
the Architecture of Entitlements

23

Conclusion

24-25

Bibliography

26

3

Introduction
In his essay titled “The Economy of Architecture”, Norman Foster reflects with great lucidity that
modernism’s “pioneering social agenda was one of its most important motivations, and perhaps
its most enduring legacy” (2002: 26). Indeed, scholars have long argued that modernism’s
predisposition

toward

socially

responsible

architecture able to “raise the
living

conditions

of

the

masses” (Henket, 2002: 10)
has

been

characteristic.

a

defining

Within

this

broader landscape of socially
motivated architecture exists
the particular situation of the development project, which is largely a post-war and post-colonial
phenomenon. This is not to suggest that projects aimed at helping the poor did not exist prior to
the second world war, but rather that the “era of development” (Esteva, 1992: 6), in the truest
sense, did not begin until the late 1940s. It was within this framework that the “perception of one’s
own [developed] self, and of the [underdeveloped] other, was suddenly created” (ibid.). While
Esteva is identifying a position which is essentially economic, this issue also has a strong cultural
dimension which was so eloquently articulated by the late Edward Said’s groundbreaking
Orientalism (1978). Ultimately Esteva and Said are identify the same issue: the marginalization of
those to whom we refer as “other” - in both economic and cultural terms. After hundreds of years
of colonialism, this “underdeveloped other” has become the target of fifty years (and counting) of
“development” - the results of which have not been encouraging. The predominant model in the
“development era” has been one in which a group of [developed] experts - usually technocratic
professionals such as architects and engineers - has been charged with the delivery of a project
aimed at an [underdeveloped] target population (Smillie, 1991: 3-19). The vast majority of
development projects, including those in which architectural design was a principal component,
have failed; and though this paradigm has been under fire for quite some time, it has been slow to
change in any fundamental terms (Esteva, 1992: 6-20). Architects, for the large part, have been
intimately involved in this process playing the role of “expert” on development projects both at
home and abroad. Equipped with a humanitarian social agenda and professional designation to
serve the public interest, many architects participated in the “development decades” that followed
4

the founding of the United Nations, only to find that being well-trained and well-intentioned were
not enough. In the years that followed the development decades of the 1960s and 1970s there been
no shortage of research and debate as to why development projects fail. Ian Smillie, one of
Canada’s leading writers on the development industry, points out that we have not been quick to
learn from our mistakes (1991: 3-62). It was not until the 1990s that the tide began to change in
significant terms, signalled by a shift away from government to government funding and toward
more partnership-based and government to NGO funding. The significance of this has two primary
characteristics: the first is a realization that working with smaller organizations is more efficient
and far more effective - an issue first raised by E. F. Schumacher in 1973; and the second is that
communities and the organizations that Introduction 1 2 they participate in must be a part of the
process in order for any project to have the ability to improve people’s lives. In architectural
discourse we are predisposed to evaluating the relative success or failure of a built work solely on
its formal, spatial, or aesthetic qualities: that is to say, the purely architectural. Herman
Hertzberger, however, reminds us that “too often the relationship between the building and the
story behind it (...) is missing” (1999: 7). Generally speaking, the story behind a work of
architecture is interesting, but not necessarily essential. In the context of humanitarian architecture
- particularly that within development projects - this issue is of parmount importance. By story we
mean the process: the ways in which an architect or design team work with the intended inhabitants
or users of a given project. Over the course of fifty odd years it has become clear that development
projects “are most successful when they are low-cost and small in scale, when they respond to the
needs of of a specific target group and involve the beneficiaries themselves in the planning and
implementation process” (Smillie, 1991: 114). In short: architecture alone cannot solve people’s
problems - no matter how well intentioned nor sensitively designed. If architecture is to
successfully address the needs of those on the margins it must address what we will refer to as the
organizational dimension. The current investigation takes the position that humanitarian
architecture can only be successful - by which we mean ecologically, economically and culturally
sustainable - if it the process is participatory and involves community organization. The present
discussion seeks to examine this proposition by looking at two projects separated by time and
place. Both projects were facilitated by African architects with the intention of improving the
conditions of people in rural villages: the first by Hassan Fathy at the very inception of the
“development era”; the second by Diebedo Francis Kere, initiated in 1999 and at present ongoing.
In exploring these two cases emphasis will be placed on the degree to which the organizational
dimension has been addressed, which, it will be argued, has informed economic and cultural
5

sustainability. The organizational dimension, in general terms, can be defined as one of people and
politics: that is, the participation of community members in the planning and implementation, at a
scale and cost which are appropriate to their needs and resources. The very act of involving
community members in the process is organizational in nature, and an act of social organization is
political in its nature. The use of the term organizational is, however, also loaded in the sense that
it alludes to a wider conclusion regarding the participatory design processes: it suggests that the
active involvement of community members in projects has the power to be transformative beyond
the life of the initial project. It proposes that when community participation is facilitated as
sensitively as a delightful work of architecture, it has the ability to become a catalyst for further
growth and improvement far beyond the initial scope of a design project. This transformative
potential of projects is an issue which will be addressed along with theoretical implications
following the case studies. Ultimately, the proposed investigation seeks to highlight the stories
behind the buildings in the context of two development projects by African architects. It is believed
that in doing so we may be able to identify the critical factors informing the cultural and economic
sustainability of such endeavours.

6

Hassan Fathy: New Gourna, 1945-48
Hassan Fathy, who trained as an architect in Egypt and France, was approached by the Egyptian
Department of Antiquities in the early 1940s to design a new village in Upper Egypt. The village
was intended to resettle the inhabitants of Gourna, a small community sited on top of the Royal
Necropolis at Luxor, whose livelihood had come from excavating pharaonic antiquities and selling
them on the black market. Fathy had established himself as Egypt’s preeminent architect on the
basis of a culturally resonant architecture that addressed climatic conditions in an elegant and
sophisticated manner. The commission to design New Gourna was as timely as it was prestigious,
as it offered Fathy the opportunity to put in practice the ideas enshrined in Architecture for the
Poor (1973), which he wrote as a reflection in the years that followed. Rather than design the
village using a limited number of prototypical dwelling units, Fathy insisted on designing each

home separately, believing that people should be appreciated as individuals - and as such should
have homes which reflected their individuality: “In Nature, no two men are alike. Even if they are
twins and physically identical, they will differ in their dreams. The architecture of the house
emerges from the dream; this is why in villages built by their inhabitants we will find no two
houses identical. This variety grew naturally as men designed and built their many thousands of
dwellings through the millennia. But when the architect is faced with the job of designing a
thousand houses at one time, rather than dream for the thousand whom he must shelter, he designs
one house and puts three zeros to its right, denying creativity to himself and humanity to man. As
if he were a portraitist with a thousand commissions and painted only one picture and made nine
hundred and ninety nine photocopies. But the architect has at his command the prosaic stuff of
dreams. He can consider the family size, the wealth, the social status, the profession, the climate,
7

and at last, the hopes and aspirations of those he shall house. As he cannot hold a thousand
individuals in his mind at one time, let him begin with the comprehensible, with a handful of
people or a natural group of families which will bring the design within his power. Once he is
dealing with a manageable group of say twenty or thirty families, then the desired variety will
naturally and logically follow in the housing.” (Fathy, 1973) In his sensitive design for this
community, Fathy involved the participation of community members in both the planning and
construction of the homes. The Gournis, however, were not willing to leave their lucrative
livelihood atop the necropolis, and as such sabotaged the effort to build the new community.
Ultimately, the inhabitants returned to old Gourna and only a portion of the new village was
completed. The example of New Gourna has been cited as both a triumph and a failure in that it
was at once designed with great clarity and skill, and at the same time so poorly received by those
for whom it was intended. There can be no question that in the final analysis it failed to address
the economic and political realities of context, in the sense that the inhabitants themselves had no
interest in relocating. Although the process was participatory in the sense that it involved the
Gournis, it was not success- 4 The primary school in Gando is the realization of one man’s vision
to to improve the quality of life in his village. Francis Kere was the first person from the village
of Gando in Burkina Faso to study abroad. As a student of architecture on scholarship in Germany,
Kere started a fundraising campaign called School Bricks for Gando. Instead of buying a second
cup of coffee, students at the school were encouraged to buy a ceremonial brick with which Kere
intended to build a primary school. By 1999 Kere, believeing that education was the key to his
village’s future,had raised enough money to begin the project. Kere also obtained funding from
LOCOMAT, a government agency in Burkina Faso, to train local bricklayers in working with
compressed, stabilized earth. Construction began in October of 2000, with the participation of the
village’s men, women, and children. The school was completed in 2001. The impetus for building
the school came from fellow villagers in Gando who informed Kere of the dire situation of the
existing government school. The school was in danger of collapse, and the villagers asked Kere
for his help. School Bricks for Gando was established as a fundraising organization prior to the
designing of the school itself, and the project was planned and implemented with the participation
and solidarity of community members. The building’s form and materials were determined
primarily from local climatic considerations. The building parti is that of three indoor classrooms
separated by covered outdoor spaces. The structure uses load-bearing walls made with stabilized
and compressed earth bricks, with concrete beams spanning the width of the ceiling. Steel bars run
across these to support an earth brick ceiling. The ceilings, covered outdoor spaces, and facade are
8

shaded by a corrugated metal roof on locally made steel trusses. The roof is raised above the walls,
allowing air to flow between the roof and ceiling, which along with the insulating qualities of the
earth bricks acts to moderate the temperature of the classrooms. ful in addressing the organizational
dimension in terms of the fundamental goals of the project. The Gournis themselves were never
behind the project in an organized or political manner, and therefore lacked support for the
fundamental premiss on which the project was based. Ultimately, the cultural and economic
sustainability of New Gourna was dependent upon the Gournis buying-in to the project - and
because they did not, the project was doomed from the onset. Although the design of the village
may have been culturally, economically, and even environmentally sensitive - which many
architectural scholars have argued they were - fundamentally there was a lack of the Gourni’s
agency attached to the project. That is, the Gournis did not choose New Gourna, and as such it was
a failure. Politically, had there been support from within the community, there may very well have
existed an organizational dimension strong enough to support the project. Without this support,
however, the project could not succeed. Architecture alone, it would seem, is not enough.

Diebedo Francis Kere: Scool in Gando, 2001
The primary school in Gando is the realization of one man’s vision to to improve the quality of
life in his village. Francis Kere was the first person from the village of Gando in Burkina Faso to
study abroad. As a student of architecture on scholarship in Germany, Kere started a fundraising
campaign called School Bricks for Gando. Instead of buying a second cup of coffee, students at
the school were encouraged to buy a ceremonial brick with which Kere intended to build a primary

9

school. By 1999 Kere, believeing that education was the key to his village’s future,had raised
enough money to begin the project. Kere also obtained funding from LOCOMAT, a government
agency in Burkina Faso, to train local bricklayers in working with compressed, stabilized earth.
Construction began in October of 2000, with the participation of the village’s men, women, and
children. The school was completed in 2001. The impetus for building the school came from fellow
villagers in Gando who informed Kere of the dire situation of the existing government school. The
school was in danger of collapse, and the villagers asked Kere for his help. School Bricks for
Gando was established as a fundraising organization prior to the designing of the school itself, and
the project was planned and implemented with the participation and solidarity of community
members. The building’s form and materials were determined primarily from local climatic
considerations. The building parti is that of three indoor classrooms separated by covered outdoor
spaces. The structure uses load-bearing walls made with stabilized and compressed earth bricks,
with concrete beams spanning the width of the ceiling. Steel bars run across these to support an
earth brick ceiling. The ceilings, covered outdoor spaces, and facade are shaded by a corrugated
metal roof on locally made steel trusses. The roof is raised above the walls, allowing air to flow
between the roof and ceiling, which along with the insulating qualities of the earth bricks acts to
moderate the temperature of the classrooms. ful in addressing the organizational dimension in
terms of the fundamental goals of the project. The Gournis themselves were never behind the
project in an organized or political manner, and therefore lacked support for the fundamental
premiss on which the project was based. Ultimately, the cultural and economic sustainability of
New Gourna was dependent upon the Gournis buying-in to the project - and because they did not,
the project was doomed from the onset. Although the design of the village may have been
culturally, economically, and even environmentally sensitive - which many architectural scholars
10

have argued they were - fundamentally there was a lack of the Gourni’s agency attached to the
project. That is, the Gournis did not choose New Gourna, and as such it was a failure. Politically,
had there been support from within the community, there may very well have existed an
organizational dimension strong enough to support the project. Without this support, however, the
project could not succeed. Architecture alone, it would seem, is not enough. Diebedo Francis Kere:
Scool in Gando, 2001 5 Because of the difficulty of transporting and lifting large elements into
place, the trusses and roof were made using common construction steel bars, for which locals needs
only handsaws and small welding machines. All of the people involved in the management of the
project were native to Gando, and the skills that they have learned can and have been applied to
other local initiatives. the way in which Gando organized itself for this project has also served to
inspire two other nearby communities to build their own schools as a cooperative effort. Kere’s
school for Gando was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004, for which the jury
cited elegant architectonic clarity achieved with the humblest of means. the jury also commented
on the project’s transformative value, and commended it for its grace, sophistication, and sympathy
with the local culture and climate. Since the completion of this project, School Bricks for Gando
has gone on to design and build teacher’s housing and a school extension - both using stabilized
earth bricks and participatory management and construction methods. Currently, School Bricks
for Gando is planning and implementing new projects including a women’s center, women’s
cooperative, community center, housing, latrines, highefficiency clay ovens, and afforestation
program. All of these projects are being developed in partnership with the community, and serve
to further underline the primary school’s transformative quality. School Bricks for Gando is still
young, but it is a vibrant organization with strong community support and a powerful vision of
what the future may bring. The scale of the project, compared to that at New Gourna, is small: first
a primary school, then a follow-up project to attract teachers, and step by step the community has
identified a set of attainable goals. The project is rooted in principles of ecologically sustainable
design, using locally made materials with a low embodied energy. The technology is low-tech and
the constrcution is low-cost, using passive strategies for climatic comfort. The building design is
sensitive to the cultural context, while at the same time critical in the sense that it aims to build
upon indigenous technology and materials in a formally modernist language. The primary school
in Gando, though modest in scope, is successful because it addresses the organizational dimension
in such a thorough manner. The social and political organization of people in both Germany and
11

the village of Gando provided a foundation of support for the project before ground had even been
broken. It was through this organization of people that participation in the planning and
implementation of the project took place - from which flowed a series of informed and appropriate
design decisions. The result is a elegant building, but as Hertzberger would no doubt agree, the
real story is the elegant process. The school, in a sense, is just a small part of a larger story, which
is about people taking responsibility for their future.

Theoritical Implications
In Small Is Beautiful, Schumacher states that “development does not start with goods [a category
which includes buildings]; it starts with people and their education, organisation, and discipline”
(1973: 140). This stance is one that directly addresses the organizatinal dimension to which we are
referring. Indeed, the position Schumacher puts forth, though over thirty years old, rings as true
today as the day in which it was written. Nearly all of the ingredients that inform a project’s
sustainability can be found in his essay: the importance of people’s participation; the need for real
partnership between the local organization and those supporting the project from outside; and most importantly, intermediate technology at an appropriate scale. This organizational dimension,
12

however, has not figured prominently in the dominant paradigm of modern architectural discourse.
For reasons that are unclear, long hours are spent evaluating the architectural merits of projects,
but seldom do we focus on the role of community organization and the way in which engaging
them may or may not support a project. While the ability to mobilize communities and embark in
participatory design processes may not have traditionally been one of the most honed skills in the
architect’s quiver, designers working for humanitarian goals can ill-afford to underestimate this
dimension: “Good development, sustainable development, cutting-edge projects are all important.
But they are not as important as the creation of strong local institutions that can help people make
decisions about what to do for themselves” (Smillie, 1995: 238). Ultimately, the position that
Schumacher takes and that Smillie reiterates nearly two decades later is one that seems almost
diametrically opposed to what is commonly held as truth in contemporary architectural discourse:
namely that architecture has an inherent capacity for social change. It is perhaps this apparent
contradiction which has served to work against the effective planning and desired sustainability of
architecture for the poor. In architectural schools and professional circles, the commonly held view
remains, as LeCorbusier argued, that architecture has the ability to inform societal change (Leach,
1996: 8). It is this transformative quality, so well articulated by the modest primary school in
Gando, that LeCorbusier and other utipian modernists such as Moise Ginzburg so passionately
sought. And while it may seem severe to suggest in conclusive terms that they (and we, as
architects) were wrong, but that is the essence of Foucault’s panopticon-inspired argument when
he states that “architectural form cannot in itself resolve social problems” (Leach, 1996: 10). This
position, however, may appear overstated as Foucault does concede that architecture “can and does
produce positive effects when the liberating intentions of the architects coincide with the real
practice of people in the exercise of their freedom (ibid.). It is this qualification which brings us
back to New Gourna and Gando, and which compels us to restate the critical importance of the
organizational dimension in humanitarian design processes. In New Gourna, Fathy’s failure
resided in the inability to align the human agency (freedom) of the Gournis with the socio-political
agenda of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. In the case of Gando it was precisely the same
issue of alignment which theoretical implications 6 proved so successful: Kere and his fellow
villagers shared the same vision for their community, and as such organized themselves to engage
in the process together. It was therefore the organizational dimension, more than any design
strategy or level of architectural skill, that ultimately informed the cultural and economic
13

sustainability of the project. The theoretical position this supports is not as severe as Foucault may
have initially suggested. In the final analysis, we need not abandon our faith in architecture’s
ability to bring about positive social change, as long as we add the qualifier that any such
endeavour must address the organizational dimension if it is to be sustainable.

Architecture and Industrialisation
You do not have to be an architect to realize that there are serious inadequacies in the present
means of solving community building problems. The capacity to handle an increased volume of
building has not improved since 1966, although the Economic Council of Canada advocates an
annual increase of 10 per cent to meet the goal of the early 1970s. The cost of construction is
increasing at a far greater rate than the cost of other consumer products to a point where the
necessities of accommodation are being considered as luxuries. Spiralling wage settlements
bearing no relation to increased productivity have contributed to higher costs with no improvement
of quality in the finished building. Unfortunately, the architectural profession has become the focus
for much criticism, which is really an expression of dissatisfaction with the end product. However,
the root of the difficulties lies in the incomplete and fragmented nature of the building process. A
study of the history of building reveals a diminishing relationship between the means of
construction and architectural expression. Before the industrial revolution the means and ends were
irrevocably linked together. Since the nineteenth century a dislocation has occurred between
process and product. The architect's concern to express human needs in architectural terms,
coupled with his traditional relationship to the client, has influenced the profession to continue
thinking in a product-oriented way. The apparently limitless choice of materials and means has
allowed design to become abstracted by the desire for effect. Today if the architect wishes to
participate in providing solutions to the real needs of the community he must learn how to control
the process of building. Why is the present construction process inadequate and what are the
conditions which have prevented an evolutionary change to solve these new problems? The
building industry regards itself as a service industry, and factors which have contributed to a low
capital intensification or industrialization are outside the control of its individual members. The
general demand for investment in new building tends to be cyclical by nature, and individual
clients have required space on a building-by-building basis. To be able to respond to these
conditions on the site and in the factory, the building industry has used methods which require a
14

limited investment in plant and a high labour content, thereby avoiding financial overcommitment.
During a period of low demand, work crews can be laid off, leaving a minimum of capital tied up
in plant and machinery. The high labour content of on-site construction methods combined in a
limited way with manufactured components represents a means of building which appears to have
reached an optimum point of development in its present form. The Honourable C. M. Drury, when
he was federal minister of industry, noted that from 1961 until 1967 productivity increases in terms
of output per person employed were 21 per cent in manufacturing industries, over 100 per cent in
agriculture, but only 6 per cent in the construction industry. Despite lower productivity, wage
settlements in the construction industry have on the average been 77 per cent higher than those in
manufacturing in the last ten years. Consequently the cost of building is out of proportion to the
value of the end product. The question is, therefore, are building resources being used effectively,
not will traditional building methods continue to be used. The industrialized building system is a
process-oriented concept which provides the organization and the means of solving the building
problems of our mass society. The approach simplifies construction methods by rationalizing the
assembly operations and utilizing factory-made building components. It is a means of speeding up
the industrialization of the building industry by creating an organization which changes the
relationships between clients, architect, contractor, and manufacturer to achieve a more effective
team. The public client holds the opportunity to initiate this approach, because public building
programs are large enough to provide the incentive for the building industry to improve its
methods. The architect must take a hand in this change by providing sound advice to the public
client who will ultimately determine the effectiveness of the organization - and the quality of the
buildings. Parts of Europe and Britain faced the problems of limited resources and shortage of
skilled labour after the second world war. The impetus of the postwar reconstruction program
started a trend, supported by national government policies, towards the industrialization of
building methods for housing and schools. A technological explanation of the concept is relatively
easy to grasp. A "meccano set," or range of components, is developed which can be used by
architects to provide a variety of designs (variety of appearance and plan) for specific local housing
conditions or educational requirements. The building components that comprise a system must be
capable of being fitted together to construct a complete building. Each individual component will
have been designed and manufactured according to the conventions of modular co-ordination in
order to ensure that the problems of preferred dimensions, tolerances, and joining details have been
15

solved. This differs from the present use of factory-made components, which are mostly custom
made for each individual building and consequently are not interchangeable. However, the benefits
of this approach depend upon a sustained program of construction of sufficient volume to allow
manufacturers to reorganize their methods for peak productivity. The scale of operation required
for this approach puts it beyond the scope of individual companies' marketing programs and at the
level of government policy. If the approach is completely administered the following benefits can
be expected: the initial capital cost of the individual building will be reduced (European experience
indicates savings of 8 to 15 per cent over traditional methods) ; on-going maintenance costs will
be reduced because of the high quality of factory finishes; on-site construction time will be reduced
and the results will be predictable, consequently building deadlines can be more readily met;
quality control of the finished building will be assured because of factory production methods. The
introduction of the systems approach to building reflects an entirely new attitude towards the coordination of the building process. The establishment of universal conventions for dimensions,
joining, and tolerances will enable new materials to be used to their full potential. A consistency
of scale can be designed into the systems approach which will allow for change and growth of
individual buildings without destroying the visual continuity of an area. It can represent a catalyst
for change in the building industry which may achieve a renaissance of the modern movement in
architecture. Here we are discussing an architecture that relates to social change through process,
an architecture that is capable of resolving some of the problems of the aesthetic and social
conflicts of a mass society. If we continue to build in the traditional manner, with emphasis upon
the "set-piece," we will eliminate the flexibility and quality which must exist to ensure a
stimulating social milieu. The systems approach is by definition responsive to changing
community needs. Visually the buildings are likely to be more matter of fact about their purpose
and less self-conscious or monumental in the traditional sense. With the systems approach there is
a balance between the problem and the means; architecture is no longer an end in itself, the
outcome of a commitment of a younger generation of architects to the changing scale of society's
problems and values. The inevitable question then is why has this approach not been used in North
America. The answer is a complex one. First, the building industry is subject to the fluctuations of
the open market. The problems of this situation have been compounded at times because the federal
government has traditionally manipulated the interest rate and other factors affecting the market
to achieve an overall balance of the economy, sometimes at the expense of the building industry.
16

Secondly, the building industry cannot be expected to industrialize its own processes unless there
is firm assurance of a market demand and consequently that the economic risk is a worthwhile
one. The fragmented nature of space requirements in Canada to date has meant that neither the
professional designers nor members of the building industry have had the incentive to reconsider
the approach to the problems of construction. The political conditions that existed in Britain and
Europe after the war were sympathetic to any concept that could ensure effective use of building
resources with a planned approach, whereas legislative means that seek to regulate the economy
have not been accepted in North America until quite recently. In Canada and the United States
needs are changing, new standards of performance are being required of the building industry, new
methods are being sought. The American Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) has recently awarded a $4.9 million research contract to an interdisciplinary team from the
building industry. The program is for the design and construction of specific housing experiments
in various major cities throughout the United States. In Canada the inevitability of the
industrialization of construction methods has already been recognized by federal government
policies: the Department of Industry's BEAM program is being acknowledged and adopted by
other departments; CMHC and the federal Department of Public Works have adopted the
principles of modular coordination for their building programs. How can the concept be applied in
British Columbia? The question here is: What kind of existing building programs lend themselves
to a systems approach? Technically it is possible to rationalize the design of most building types
to use factory-made components, so the choice is not limited to a specific kind of building. The
approach depends upon a recurring substantial volume of work. It is apparent that housing and
school construction represent a demand of this kind. Although housing is a current political issue
and governments at both the federal and provincial levels have overlapping responsibilities in this
field, the actual commercial free-wheeling development process does not lend itself to organized
programs. However, the provincial school building program must necessarily be administered with
a concern for the long-term responsibilities of investing public funds. The organization of the
existing captive market is a major administrative problem that may require special legislation. It
is apparent that the present costsharing method of school financing does not encourage cooperation between local school districts for any purpose, and placing the entire responsibility for
the initiation of school building at the local level tends to emphasize the parochial interests of each
district. Consequently, although it is feasible to consider the captive market of the provincial
17

school building program as a unit, the initiative for such a step rests in the hands of the provincial
government. The sponsorship of an industrialized building system is the key to the entire problem.
Someone must be prepared to make a substantial investment into the research, design, and
development of building components manufactured specifically to meet the requirements of
educational buildings. Whose interests are great enough to justify the investment and to carry the
risk until the benefits become fact? Commercial sponsorship is a possibility, although it is subject
to certain limitations. The sponsor must have reasonable assurance that his product will be
purchased in sufficient volume to make it competitive with traditional methods. If a number of
projects are successfully completed, there is every likelihood that a competitor will develop a new
building system to compete for the same market. In this eventuality there can be a proliferation of
building systems of commercial interests trying to jump on the bandwagon, which will cancel out
the broad social benefit of the concept. In Britain, where the Hertfordshire County Council
successfully pioneered the first educational building system in 1947, there are now over three
hundred educational and housing systems of which only about forty are economically viable. The
proliferation of commercial systems in this province is particularly undesirable because of the
limited size of our school building program. Another limitation of the commercially sponsored
system is that the factor of repetition in factory production which provides savings for the
purchaser will provide increasing profit for the manufacturer only so long as there are no major
design changes. This means that there is no built-in incentive for a commercial sponsor to modify
the design to adapt to new curriculum patterns, or to meet the more sophisticated requirements of
an expanding market. It is understandable that private interests are reluctant to invest in such a
demanding field. The client (who for school buildings are the elected representatives, the trustees,
and the provincial government) is in a much stronger position to initiate a building system if the
program is large enough. For example, 75 per cent of all school construction in Britain utilizes
systems building methods. Two client-orientated public building consortiums — CLASP and
SEAC - have educational building programs in excess of $55 million annually. The new
universities of York and Bath are constructed with the CLASP, Mark iv system. Thirteen school
districts in Southern California, together with the Educational Facilities Laboratories Inc. (an agent
of the Ford Foundation), sponsored the School Construction System Development (SCSD), which
was used in 1966 to build $25 million of school space. In Canada at the present time the Catholic
Schools Commission in Montreal and the Metropolitan Toronto School Board have commissioned
18

major research and development projects on building systems for educational facilities. Tenders
have already been called for manufacturers to bid on two million square feet of school space in
Toronto. The issues are clear, it remains for us to benefit from this experience in order that we may
achieve the best features of all that has already been done. Let us assume that the initial problems
of sponsorship have been over come successfully, and that a public building consortium for
educational facilities is operating in the lower mainland. What are the implications for the
community? Experience in Britain indicates that educational building consortiums tend to
snowball in size. The initial members, the local boards and perhaps a regional college board, have
administered the organization effectively and have been paid off with better buildings. The
neighbouring districts which are still using traditional building methods on a one-buildingat-a-time
basis are impressed by the results. The board visits the systems built schools and is agreeably
surprised by the high quality of finish together with a great many design features that it has been
forced to consider as luxuries in its own district. The approach is explained, and the political and
administrative advantages of a controlled predictable process become clear. It is pointed out that
participating members are currently using the savings of the systems approach on special local
projects. The completed buildings are the most persuasive arguments of all, and the visiting board
makes a request to become a full member of the consortium. The community architect will then
be asked to design the school, although he will choose from a catalogue of preferred components
determined by the systems sponsor. The choice available to him and consequently the opportunity
for variety in plan and appearance will have been predetermined by the initial user studies. If that
job was well done the consideration given to educational problems will be more comprehensive
and far reaching than has been economically possible before. The designer will be able to spend
more time on local educational requirements, because the majority of the technical problems will
have been solved in the design of the system. The use of improved technology will enable the
architect to provide flexibility and a far richer variety of interior spaces, but the opportunity for
custom design remains the same as it is now. The administration of the consortium will achieve an
equalization of resources between wealthy school districts and less fortunate, so that all
participants will enjoy a high quality of school space at a cost that the community can afford. An
affluent district may wish to build special features or embellish a school with architectural
cosmetics, but the fundamentals will be available for all. The product will be better because the
process is controlled. By anticipating our future urban growth now and by considering educational
19

problems on a long-term policy basis, we can avoid the kind of construction crisis that we are faced
with at the moment. The key to this problem is to ensure the effective use of our present building
resources. It is no longer reasonable nor is it in the public interest to continue to tackle the
construction of each school as if it had never been done before. An approach to the total problem
must be established which will provide the professional decision-makers with a knowledge of the
collective experience of the building industry.
The client has become conditioned to expect a custom service, because in the past
the building industry has traditionally regarded itself as a service industry. However, the increase
in the volume of construction has revealed the inadequacies of the traditional approach and brought
about a reassessment of the effectiveness of present relationships within the industry. The client
must be prepared to rethink his role and realize that the systems approach depends upon a
consistent relationship between client and professional. The client is the only group with the power
to bring about change within the industry, and the professional group holds the comprehensive
knowledge of the organizational and technological problems. It is essentially a people problem,
that is, a question of awareness on the part of the individuals who hold the responsibility for action.
If the benefits are great enough, then they warrant the increased involvement and responsibilities
that will be placed upon the elected representative, the client.
It is remarkable how the tone of architecture culture has changed in only a few years. In the
heady days of the 2000s, architects were in furious competition to produce "iconic" buildings for
a global market. Virtuosi such as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster kept the media
fed with fabulous images of museums and corporate headquarters, earning the moniker
"starchitects". But after the financial crash of 2008, it became clear that the social value of so
much of that starchitecture was nil. And there was a correction, to borrow a stock market term, in
the architect's image.
Architecture schools such as the Angewandte in Vienna - once hotbeds of "parametric" shapemaking - suddenly started opening departments of "social design". This U-turn has been reflected
in the media, which is now far more attuned to social architecture. Al Jazeera's series Rebel
Architects for example looks at the work of six practitioners who might be called "activist
architects". Activist architects often work in slums or disadvantaged communities, with minimal
budgets and in conditions of desperate need. An obvious dialectic presents itself, but this is not a
tale of starchitect versus activist. For in an ideal world neither of these characters would exist.
20

Both are products of neoliberalism. It is just that they operate at different extremes of the social
spectrum: one serving capital and the other aiding those disenfranchised by it. Activists step in
where the state has abdicated its responsibility and where the market sees too little profit. But given
the scale of the problems facing cities as we speak, they have their work cut out.
Urban inequality is one of the great challenges of the century. Most urban growth is taking place
in the developing world, and it is mostly not being supported by governments or facilitated by
architects. Slum-dwellers build more housing every year than all of the governments and
developers put together. UN Habitat estimates thatby 2030 two billion people will be living in
"informal" self-built communities. Without the necessary infrastructure - transport, running water
and decent sanitation - we are looking at the proliferation of ghettos on a vast scale.
Can a handful of socially conscientious architects even begin to address that situation? No, this
will require political will. But there are plenty of examples of architects prodding the politicians
into action.
Latin America offers an unparalleled case study in how such strategies work, and how they came
to be necessary. In the second half of the 20th century, South and Central America experienced
mass urbanisation on a scale the world had not yet seen. Initially, governments turned to modernist
planning and mass housing schemes. But they could not build megablocks fast enough, and in the
late 1970s the neoliberal ideology trickling down from the United States persuaded them to let the
market do its thing. By the end of the 1980s, the result of such laissez-faire policies was clear: an
absolute explosion of slums.

Small Scale Big Change
It was not until the late 1990s that architects returned to the problem of the urban poor, reprising
design as a tool of politics. Often, they had strategic solutions but needed to lobby the politicians
to realise them - which is what makes them activist architects. One of the more famous of these
interventions is the "half houses" designed by the Chilean practice Elemental in Chile. The premise
here was ruthlessly logical: without enough money to build everyone in the community a house,
the practice built everyone half a house. Thus when the residents had saved enough money they
would expand into the empty gaps between the buildings. It was a pragmatic and participative
solution.
But in the case of sprawling slums there are often far more urgent issues than housing. Transport
is one of the essential tools for bridging the distance - both physical and psychological - between
21

the formal and the informal city. In Caracas, the architecture practice Urban-Think Tank lobbied
the Chavez government into building a cable car up to the hillside barrio of San Agustin. The
journey to the top of that hill, which once took an hour on foot, now takes just 15 minutes.
This kind of architecture requires an expanded skill set - arguably, a whole new outlook. For one
thing, architects working in poor communities have to be extroverts. They have to get to know the
communities they want to work in, understand their needs and make them participants in the
process.
However, in celebrating activist architects we must not lose site of one crucial issue: scale. The
problems facing the 21st-century city are on a scale that cannot even begin to be addressed by
architects on their own. Despite all the talk of "urban acupuncture" - the idea that small, local
interventions can stimulate change - it needs to be implemented at a relevant scale. One school or
gymnasium inserted in a barrio can make a difference to a community, but it takes a whole network
of them to lift the character of a city.
This is best illustrated by what happened in Medellin, Colombia, in the first decade of this century.
In the 1990s, at the mercy its warring drug cartels, Medellin was the murder capital of the world.
Here, a civic movement led by the mayor used architecture and public space to transform the city.
But it happened through the concerted efforts of politicians, architects and the business
community, and it was backed up with investment in transport and education. Barrios that were
once considered no-go zones were connected by cable cars, and seeded with schools, libraries and
parks.
The lesson of Medellin is that it takes serious political will to address urban inequality. So often
the privations suffered by the poor are infrastructural - they suffer more from the lack of transport
or sanitation or education than they do from the quality of their homes. Architects can harness the
energies of grassroots community building, but self-organisation has its limits - a community can
build themselves homes but they cannot build themselves a transport network. Bottom-up impulses
need to be connected to top-down infrastructural investment.
Though architects are well placed to be the mediators, they cannot merely operate as rogue loners
or "rebels". Nor can they be charity workers, doing bits of pro bono work on the side. This is as
true in the developed world, which faces rather different urban challenges. One thinks of the
millions of Americans who were evicted in the foreclosures that followed the crash, or the housing
crisis in London, or the austerity-hit cities of southern Europe.
22

Again, it comes down to political commitment. Recall that in the 1950s the largest architecture
practice in the world was not some corporate behemoth or starchitect's office but the London
County Council Architects' Department, a public service full of talented but mostly anonymous
architects building social housing and amenities. It turns out that the market simply cannot provide
what the LCC once did, and, with the best will in the world, neither can activist architects. Yet
they have a valuable role to play in reorienting the profession. They remind us that architecture is
a social act and they provide the exemplars that prove to governments that change is within their
grasp. In an ideal world activist architects would not have to exist but, since the world is far from
ideal, we need them badly

Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and the Architecture of
Entitlements
The objective of this paper is to outline a conceptual model of vulnerability to climate change as
the first step in appraising and understanding the social and economic processes which facilitate
and constrain adaptation. Vulnerability as defined here pertains to individuals and social groups.
It is the state of individuals, of groups, of communities defined in terms of their ability to cope
with and adapt to any external stress placed on their livelihoods and well-being. This proposed
approach puts the social and economic well-being of society at the centre of the analysis, thereby
reversing the central focus of approaches to climate impact assessment based on impacts on and
the adaptability of natural resources or ecosystems and which only subsequently address
consequences for human well-being. The vulnerability or security of any group is determined by
the availability of resources and, crucially, by the entitlement of individuals and groups to call on
these resources. This perspective extends the concept of entitlements developed within neoclassical and institutional economics. Within this conceptual framework, vulnerability can be seen
as a socially-constructed phenomenon influenced by institutional and economic dynamics. The
study develops proxy indicators of vulnerability related to the structure of economic relations and
the entitlements which govern them, and shows how these can be applied to a District in coastal
lowland Vietnam. This paper outlines the lessons of such an approach to social vulnerability for
the assessment of climate change at the global scale. We argue that the socio-economic and
biophysical processes that determine vulnerability are manifest at the local, national, regional and
global level but that the state of vulnerability itself is associated with a specific population.
23

Conclusion
One implication of this position is that rather than being focused on a particluar project or building,
architects engaged in humanitarian architecture should perhaps be more goal-oriented. An example
of this approach can be found in Leon, Nicaragua, where groups of architecture students and
practitioners from the U.S. have been working with the community to achieve the larger goal of
community development. In working with community-based NGOs, the designers have learned to
engage the organizational dimension, thereby allowing community members themselves to
identify problems (Markiewiscz, 2003: 43-45). Through this process, designers are better equipped
to enter into dialogue and explore design solutions in a participatory fashion. This process will
have a far greater ability to reflect people’s actual needs and generate more meaningful projects
with a greater level of community stewardship. When practiced in a sensitive manner, such an
approach will produce an architecture which is sustainable in both cultural and economic terms.
Within the framework of architecture like Francis Kere’s which addresses the organizational
dimension in a successful way, it may be worthwhile to return to Esteva’s 1992 article on
“development”. In the section entitled “New Commons”, the author challenges those on the margin
to “disengage” from the formal (economic) sector (1992: 20). While the rationale behind this
argument is not lost on us almost fifteen years later, we may choose to propose an ammendment
to this approach given the example of School Bricks for Gando. Resistance, we might add, can
take many forms - including those taking place within a the formal economy and within a
framework of “development”. This is not to suggest that we abandon our suspicions regarding neoliberal market forces, nor that we shelf the valuable contributions made to Wofgang Sachs
Development Dictionary. To the contrary we would not be in any position to generate meaningful
responses to the current poverty crisis were it not for those sensitively articulated arguments. What
we propose, rather, is that we open the circle of those opposed to “business as usual”, to include
those who have chosen to function within the margins or the formal sector who are helping those
on the margins of the formal sector. In this light, the New Commons could be understood as a
forum of like-minded individuals, as well as a place outside of the confines of market-oriented
society. This proposition may seem less radical than one which envisions an entirely new way of
social and economic interaction, but it might allow us to take a more evolutionary route toward
social and economic justice that is more in line with Schum- 7 conclusion 8 acher’s thoughts on
development. “Organization”, Schumacher argues, “does not ‘jump’; it must gradually evolve to
24

fit changing circumstances” (1973: 141). In this light, Fathy’s failure becomes an intimate
component of Kere’s success - they are both part of larger evolutionary process in which the
lessons of the previous generation inform the approach of the present one. In resisting a
dichotomized view of the world (i.e. those who participate versus those who resist), we resist the
temptation toward “self” and “other”, and focus instead on our common values and needs. By
choosing to function within the system, Francis Kere has employed his own agency to make the
system work for him - fundraising in Germany for his community in Burkina Faso - two separate
yet local contexts which address the organizational dimension at an appropriate scale. By working
within the system on his own terms, Kere has shown us that architecture can be both sensually
engaging and socially transformative - able to realize the vision that proved so elusive to the
LeCorbusier and Ginzburg. “We no longer share the optimism of the early modernists who thought
that new would automatically mean better (...) back from utopia, We nevertheless have to continue
the struggle that initiated the desire for it in the first place” (Heynen, 2002: 398). Architecture
alone cannot change society, only people can. By taking Hertzberger’s advice we can explore the
story behind the architecture and in so doing arrive at a better processes that engage the
organizational deminsion to delivery meaningful projects to those living on society’s margins.

25

Bibliography
London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Buchli, Victor.
“Moisie Ginzburg’s Narkomfin Communal House in Moscow: Contesting the Social and Material World”,
in Journal of The Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 160-181, 241, June 1998.
Fathy, Hassan. Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. Foster, Norman.
“The Economy of Architecture”, in Back From Utopia: The Challenge of the Modern Movement.
Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2002. pp. 26-37. Henket, Hubert-Jan.
“Back From Utopia: The Challenge of the Modern Movement”, in Back From Utopia: The Challenge of the
Modern Movement.
Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2002. pp. 8-17.
Hertzberger, Herman. “The Mechanism of the Tweentieth Century and the Architecture of Aldo Van Eyck”,
in Ligtelijn, Vincent (ed.), Aldo Van Eyck: Works 1944-1999. Boston: Birkhauser Press, 1999. Heynen, Hilde.
“Engaging Modernism”, in Back From Utopia: The Challenge of the Modern Movement. Rotterdam: 010
Publishers, 2002. pp. 378-398. Leach, Neil.
“Architecture or Revolution?”, in Architectural Design, January, 1996. Markiewiscz, Evan.
“Architecture, Society and Social Change”, in ArcCA: the journal of the American Institute of Architects,
California Council, no. 2, pp. [42]-45, 2003. Schumacher, E. F.
Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered. London: Abacus Books, 1973. Smillie, Ian.
Mastering the Machine: Poverty, Aid and Technology. London: Intermediate Technology Publications,
1991. Smillie, Ian.
The Alms Bazaar: Altruism Under Fire - Non-Profir Organizations and International Development. Ottawa:
IDRC, 1995. Steele, James. Architecture for People: The Complete Works of Hassan Fathy. London: Thames
& Hudson, 1997.

26

Sponsor Documents

Or use your account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Forgot your password?

Or register your new account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link to create a new password.

Back to log-in

Close