For Peru, the transfer of technology was one of PREVI’s success stories, from building systems to specific products that are still in use. By incorporating productivity indicators in the construction sector, PREVI proved that skill sets of foreign origin can be adapted to local reality. Productivity was reviewed following International Labour Organisation standards which were difficult initially to grasp by the construction professionals not familiar with industrial systematisation. Idle time, imputable absences, sloth, carelessness, accidents and management failure to plan, direct, coordinate and inspect efficiently were all flagged, assigning to them a cost that was later transferred to the final user. Most PREVI solutions are still relevant with rich potential for current housing policy makers and low-cost housing developers in third world cities. Some architectural types have aged more than others; some will always posses the innovative flair that make them fit with new needs. Housing is not a right anymore in Peru as this was deleted in the new constitution of 1993. UN Habitat recommended its reincorporation to make it legally binding to liberalise and give the private sector an active role in proposing low-cost housing models for, if not encouraged by the market, the government or the civil society, developers will not create nor offer a neighbourhood experience but a succession of over-simplified architectural solutions. The premise that a neighbourhood is an accumulation of houses is an accepted mistake excused by the limited expenditure capacity and the natural sociability of Latin American and Mediterranean societies. As time goes by, as the voices fade, the oral accounts from participants and early PREVI dwellers will disappear with the important information on how to build a community, because we already know how to build a house. c PREVI has put on the map some of the key and relevant contemporary priorities for design, planning and building technology for a sustainable residential built environment. - Peter Land, Experimental by Nature . Digital Architectural Papers, ETH Zurich, 2012
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Manuel Llanos Jhon Architect
from the top: Project I-2: Knud Svenssons (Denmark). Recognisable Danish units of 60mm-thick indented concrete walls panels cast in-situ using a custom fiberglass formwork meant to be retained as community property. Project I-2: Knud Svenssons (Denmark). Laneway pedestrian street that preserves the small scale of the Andalusian backstreets of Arabic origin, always related to the Latin American cities. Project P-22 (Peru) Cluster main floor as per competition entry (see previous and facing pages). In its finished stage it had ten rooms for sleeping with shelter for 16 people.
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