Abstract
Incremental housing, supported by governmental funding, denotes a solution for low-income households where they can gradually customise their dwelling. The Chilean government officials and architects proposed phases of construction which fell short of addressing the households’ capabilities and motivation to finalise their units. Hereof, this article looks at two incremental housing projects: Lo Espejo condominium (2007) and Las Higueras (2006) in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile, to inquire capacities of government officials and architects’ comprehensive assistance to families’ housebuilding. The hypothesis holds that the greater responsibility of government officials and architects engaged with incremental housing will enhance motivation of low-income families to customise their house by self-building practice. Arguing for the importance of the self-building the author proposed the guideline for customising houses that comprises four phases: introducing the incremental construction design idea, discussing with families the possibilities for completing houses, connecting households’ construction plans with their financial resources, and presenting the customisation design template. This guideline structure is founded on extensive nine months fieldwork in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, carried out in close collaboration with low-income households from two neighbourhoods, the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism of Chile, the Architectural Office Elemental, and “Gubbins Arquitectos.”
Highlights
John Turner argues for “housing as a process”, which portrays the housing of less privileged groups in society as a never-ending process (Turner, 2007)
Families from Las Higueras achieved a customisation rate higher than those from Lo Espejo condominium, the government officials and architects involved in this project failed to provide technical support for increasing immediate involvement of low-income families
With the purpose of creating a completely functional unit, low-income household needs to modify their base house, which in most cases comprises a kitchen, a bathroom, a dining room and a bedroom. This housing solution acknowledges the significance of the financing mechanism, urban location, design strategies and construction methods
Summary
John Turner argues for “housing as a process”, which portrays the housing of less privileged groups in society as a never-ending process (Turner, 2007). The government officials and architects delivered base houses to low-income households without the indispensable information on how they should inhabit and customise them This approach resulted in households’ unrealistic expectations from their first owned house, disappointments with spatial limitations, and confusion regarding the customisation of units and the families withdrew from the immediate involvement in incremental construction and dependence on constructors increased. Together with these research methods, the argument is relying on interviews carried out with architects from the Elemental Architectural Office and Gubbins Arquitectos, and the author’s drawings and photos of houses during the fieldwork Within this framework, to commence rising the families’ direct involvement in customisation of houses, the author proposes the alteration of incremental construction grounded on the customisation guideline that represents a re-evaluation of what the families could expect of modified houses. The idea of the base house originates from the self-built, core house or sanitary unit system for upgrading informal settlements in urban areas (Pandelaki & Shiozaki, 2010, p. 234)
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