PREVI is usually compared to Weissenhof Estates (1929) in Stuttgart, housing developed from a collaboration of Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Gropius, Sharoun and many other figures of the heroic years of the Modern Movement. For PREVI, professionals were selected based on talent and their experience in building communities rather than structures. Pushing geographic, economic and political barriers, they came from four continents, from the western and eastern blocks, from poor and rich nations. In PREVI everybody had in common their involvement in collectives with a commitment to anticipated change and the mobility of urban and architectural structures found with Metabolism (Japan), Team 10 (UK, Italy, France) and Structuralism (Netherlands).
In 1969, six teams were chosen. A few months later, under
It is useless to consider the house except as a part of a community owing to the interaction of these on each other. — Team X, The Doorn Manifesto ,1954
a new government, the jury recommended the teams be increased to 26. They were to build clusters of 20 houses each totalling 500 units in an Experimental Neighbourhood Unit planned by Peter Land, UN prime consultant and project leader. The original 1500 unit plan would be built in a later stage by selecting a few projects based on a strict evaluation. The modular dwellings were designed to a 100mm module, totalling 60-150m 2 built areas on 80-120m 2 lots, able to accommodate up to ten family members. A basic module open to anticipated horizontal or vertical growth satisfied the flexible behaviour of families by giving them technological solutions that would help them build the planned expansions by themselves. In 1971 when the de facto government assumed complete management of PREVI, enthusiasm began to fade. Lack of understanding, interest and the illogical allocation of resources delayed construction, completion and occupancy. When construction finished in 1977 the population with the capacity to finance their home (by allocating 20% of their family income at 6% annual rate) dropped from 25% in 1967 to 12%, as the country experienced one of its first major economic crises of the late-twentieth century.
above: Project P-22 (Peru) Unicreto © On-site prefabrication system. The creation of spatial elements that simultaneously contain walls, roofs, and all their electrical and sanitary components has always been a difficult task in engineering and architecture; these systems usually require large infrastructures for manufacturing, transport and installation.The Unicreto system, patented by Carlos Aguirre Roca, with the collaboration of Manuel Llanos, presents a system easy to manufacture and assemble on site; it can be deployed anywhere in the country, requiring only a concrete pad to horizontally pour walls and roof elements.The self-supporting three-dimensional elements enable urban courtyard-type conformations that can not be achieved with other construction methods. Its particular assembly process requires collaborative communal work building up also stronger communities. Unicreto were also used for emergency response in Peruvian and Ecuadorian earthquake disaster zones. [Previ: Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda PP1 P-22 - Volumen 19, Ministerio de Vivienda, Lima, 1980] below: Project P-22 (Peru) Unicreto U frames manufactured and mounted on site, 1973, and finished house, 1976
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left: Project I-9: José Luís Iñiguez de Onzoño & Antonio Vásquez de Castro (Spain) Group of houses with interior patios of 108 & 135 m2 allowing 22 plan variations.When the second floor is built, a room becomes a stairwell with a spiral stair.
Manuel Llanos Jhon Architect
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