“From a design point of view, informality is a condition of complex, non-linear systems in which patterns overlap, intersect, and mutate in unexpected ways. Flexibility is the common ground among these approaches, a model of organic development that challenges the assumption of traditional Western planning that man controls his surroundings. In contrasts, the patterns of development evident in informal settlements […] are ‘emergent’, which assumes the absence of an identifiable author or agent; creation is either entirely spontaneous or generated by many convergent factors.” (Brillenbourg, Feireiss y Klumpner 2005, 43)
In the pueblos jóvenes, appropriation of public space often occurs through informal processes, “not done or made according to a recognized or prescribed form; not according to order; unofficial, disorderly.” (Brillenbourg, Feireiss y Klumpner 2005, 18). This does not mean that said appropriation – through mobile or ephemeral structures, furniture, gardening, enclosures, etc. – lack of form or that there is no logic or rational process in its development. We are talking instead of a different, alternative way of occupying the city, of establishing a relationship with the territory, wherever and whenever there is a lack of formal, official solutions.
In such a context, the boundaries between what is private and what is public are blurred. The distinction of what belongs to one individual, to a family or to the community is difficult to recognise from the outside and it varies, according to time and particular situations. It is in this grey realm that the appropriation of public space occurs, by means of the transformation of what is there, in order to host new places for the event, the spontaneous, and the everydayness.
The act of appropriation does not always occur in an easy, peaceful way: it might even involve the using of somebody else’s property, the difficult coordination of different parties, or even the stomping over others’ rights. One of the tasks of architecture might be to act as a mediator between the forces involved in the act of appropriation and thus, in the generation of an identity linked to one place.
Huaycán is the chosen territory for the intervention. It is a large neighbourhood originated as a barriada asistida (government-aided squatter settlement), that has continued to grow since its creation in 1984 through urban and architecture practices, both formal and informal. First, we observe, aiming to recognise not only the appropriation of space but also the mechanisms and reasons behind it, considering that “in order to understand a culture it is necessary to comprehend the others in their own terms, without projecting our own categories in an ethnocentric way.” (Grimson 2011, 57)
Then, we offer our take on said mechanisms, proposing an architectural intervention that both assimilates what we can learn from the site, and suggest new ways of interaction with the built environment.
No comments:
Post a Comment