Lima is a centralised city where informal planning was overwhelming the formal city. In the 1950s, while other South American cities such as Caracas and Santiago were importing models of highrises and super-blocks as part of their low-income housing policies, Lima was providing ‘assisted shantytowns’. These allowed illegal occupation of and self-construction on public non-urbanised land designated for social interest by the Official Community Plan, as long as urban legislation was respected (street clearances, areas for services and urban facilities). Not without a violent beginning, this laissez-faire policy was accepted by users. The role of authorities was reduced to the mere supply of sites and services. At that time, also in Lima, John F C Turner, a British urbanist, was championing a participatory role for communities in building cities while criticising an unreliable state that limited access to housing by poor management of land, technology and money. Turner greatly influenced Habitat ’76. The Vancouver Declaration recognised spontaneous urban settlements, the use of indigenous planning methods and the involvement of citizens making creative use of their ‘ingenuity and skills’. It also acknowledged the role of an empowered population in shaping communities. Fernando Belaunde (1912–2002), an architect, urbanist, housing expert, professor and Peruvian household name, was president of Peru from 1963 to 1968. During his first mandate he began conversations with the United Nations on a new type of neighbourhood unit that would fit the needs of an uncontrollably growing city. PREVI was the response: simple, inexpensive and humane housing, based on the principles of rationalisation, standardisation, repetition, self- construction, mutation and evolution. In 1968 a collective of 13 international and 28 Peruvian architects were invited to compete in the creation of progressive housing prototypes for a new kind of community of 1500 units to be built 8 kilometres north of Lima. A low-rise / high- density concept (200 to 300 persons per hectare) expanded the traditional concept of housing framed by the Official Development Plan, by offering a new strategy for the design of neighbourhoods at increased densities while addressing considerations on daylight, natural cross ventilation, sound mitigation, human scale and separation between vehicle and pedestrian circulation; aspects assumed as customary for today’s communities, but elusive for the urban poor. from the top: Project I-11:Aldo Van Eyck
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(Netherlands) Competition entry (a) Urban Master Plan proposal
(b) Urban services location: Kindergarten, elementary and high school, recreation center with all-purpose room, library, medical clinic, and convenience stores. (c) Unit development: Floor plans, elevations, sections and isometric views of the Individual housing units and cluster group arrangements [Previ: Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda PP1 I-11 - Volumen 19, Ministerio de Vivienda, Lima, 1980] right: A Limenean worker taking a noon nap after a morning of hard work. PREVI proposed housing solutions for the most vulnerable part of society, offering worth and dignity of the individual, supporting freedom of choice.
Michelle Llona R.
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