Time builds! / ¡El Tiempo Construye!

topics

Publishers

Architecture

ISBN: 9788425221958
English/Spanish edition
Editorial Gustavo Gili
Paperback, 160 pages
19 x 27 cm
October 2008
€43,27 (excl. VAT)

Time builds! / ¡El Tiempo Construye!

Fernando Garcia-Huidobro, Diego Torres Torriti, Nicolás Tugas

Formulated in 1967, the PREVI Experimental Housing Project in Lima is one of the most ambitious experiments in social housing ever built, not only for the number of variables proposed but also because it brought together, for the first time, such outstanding figures on the architectural scene of the time as Aldo van Eyck, Charles Correa, James Stirling, Christopher Alexander, Atelier 5, Fumihiko Maki, Candilis, Josic and Woods, among others. With their proposals for low-density, progressive housing they jointly debated various ways of creating the city in a context of limited resources and urgent urbanization.

A study of PREVI after more than three decades since its formulation seeks not only to salvage the original construction along the lines of an 'archaeological' survey, which reclaims the authorial oeuvre hidden behind the constant interventions on the part of its occupants, but aims to call into question the idea of housing as a habitational solution, the role of the architect in the process and the materials of the design as scarce resources. To salvage the idea of neighbouring units, the rapport between public and communal space, the values and possibilities of a more open city planning and the different family structures against the actual standardization of the user.