Many years ago, an architect in Rio invited me to participate
in a national competition. The goal was to find a way to
provide proper housing for people from the countryside who
were settling on the mudflats facing the city of Salvador,
in the state of Bahia. Close to 100,000 people were building
their houses hovering barely above the mud, with most of the
materials coming from city garbage dumps nearby.
We won the competition and shortly afterwards we went
to the city's Alagados district to check out our drawings in
the field. As a young assistant and I were stepping along the
raised wooden walkways between the houses, we noticed
a man cutting a board with the kind of saw I used to give
my kids for Christmas, while his little son was pulling nails
out of a broken crate and straightening them so they could
be reused. When I asked him if he was building his own
house he answered that he was the builder for the whole
neighbourhood, which consisted of rows of houses on stilts on
both sides of the walkways.
Closer to the centre we stopped at a small square, which had
been made with an accumulation of city garbage, to have
a look at our drawings. Soon a number of people gathered
around us. Initially they were just curious, but then someone
shouted: "Here they are again, those good for nothings,
getting big salaries, paid with our misery." The crowd became
restless and my young friend whispered, "We'd better make
a run for it." Deciding to do precisely that, we were promptly
followed by a crowd of angry shouting inhabitants. Luckily
we managed to outrun the mob and safely reach the main
road. I can still picture that moment now: two young
architects running for their lives over those rickety walkways
and bridges.
Back in Rio I told my partner that all our plans were rather
unrealistic. It would have been far better to spend the money
on tools, materials and information. As an example, in this
whole section of the city, neighbourhood after neighbourhood
was entirely built with wood and tin cladding, and apparently
nobody knew about triangulation in structures. We saw
houses that were already starting to keel over even while
under construction. Fortunately the houses all stood quite
close together, and as a result they were able to lean on each
other for support.
But my fellow architect back home in the metropolis thought
it was too late in the proceedings to come up with a different
approach, as the builders for this housing project had already
been chosen. Unwilling to compromise, I withdrew from this
game in which I could no longer believe. Technology, including
alternative ones, can be found all around us if only we know
where to look. Often we seem to have the answers, but that
does not mean we have asked the right questions. I feel it
will be necessary to provide ways of stimulating people to
question their situation and learn to look for those who might
have the answers.
While working in Mexico on human settlement design, I was
asked to make building instruction posters and games. I also
worked with local populations to teach about earthquake-resistant
structures. Noticing that far too much cement was
used, we set about making very thin curved floor panels,
which worked very well. Furthermore, to improve sanitary
conditions we introduced self-built prefabricated water
filters and dry composting toilets. Everything was made from
ferrocement, except that instead of using metal reinforcing
we recycled open woven plastic food bags from markets.
Nonetheless, the distribution of these techniques was still
somewhat uneven. We thought that a small handbook
containing all kinds of building techniques would be more
accessible for the self-help builders. The manual was ready
two years later, and was subsequently translated into several
languages. During the late 1980s we were able to start a new
project, this time setting up a centre to teach Bio-Architecture
and Intuitive Technology, soon to be known as TIBÁ.
Johan
van Lengen
published
the Manual
del arquitecto
descalzo: cómo
construir casas
y otros edificios
(Editorial
Concepto) in
Spanish in 1982,
selling over
200,000 copies.
The book was
later translated
into Portuguese
and, in 2007,
also into English
with the title
The Barefoot
Architect: A
Handbook for
Green Building.
Written with
the intention of
transmitting the
techniques of
self-building to
poor populations,
the book
resulted from
the extensive
experience
gained by the
Dutch-born
architect in
Latin America.
In 1998, with
his wife Rose,
Van Lengen
founded TIBÁ, a
training centre
for intuitive
technology and
bio-architecture
near Rio de
Janeiro.
How I lost my shoes
When building proper housing for poor populations, technology can be found all around us, if only we know where to look. Often architects seem to have the answers, but that does not mean we have asked the right questions.
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- Johan van Lengen
- 23 May 2012
- Rio de Janeiro