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ARCHITECTURE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Amith Raj, B.arch 8th

A8304011006

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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

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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

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Introduction

In his essay titled The Economy of Architecture, Norman Foster reflects with great lucidity that

modernisms pioneering social agenda was one of its most important motivations, and perhaps

its most enduring legacy (2002: 26). Indeed, scholars have long argued that modernisms

predisposition toward

socially responsible

architecture able to raise the

living conditions of the

masses (Henket, 2002: 10)

has been a defining

characteristic. 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 ones

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 Saids 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

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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

Canadas 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 peoples 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 peoples

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

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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.

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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 Egypts 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,

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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 mans 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

villages 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

villages 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 buildings 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

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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 Gournis

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 mans 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

10

school. By 1999 Kere, believeing that education was the key to his villages 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 villages 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 buildings 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

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have argued they were - fundamentally there was a lack of the Gournis 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. Keres

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 projects 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 teachers 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 womens center, womens

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 schools 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

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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 projects

sustainability can be found in his essay: the importance of peoples 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,

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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

architects 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 Foucaults 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, Fathys 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

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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 architectures

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

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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

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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 co-

ordination 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.

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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 co-

operation 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

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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

19

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

20

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" shape-

making - 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.

21

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

22

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.

23

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 neo-

classical 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.

24

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 peoples 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 Keres which addresses the organizational

dimension in a successful way, it may be worthwhile to return to Estevas 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 neo-

liberal 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 achers thoughts on

development. Organization, Schumacher argues, does not jump; it must gradually evolve to

25

fit changing circumstances (1973: 141). In this light, Fathys failure becomes an intimate

component of Keres 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 Hertzbergers 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 societys margins.

26

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