In North America, due to highly regulated zoning rules, the most common form of architect-free architecture is the architecture of the dispossessed, the architecture of the homeless population. Whether in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver or the Lower East Side of Manhattan, these forms often are a combination of boxes, crates, parts of old machinery found on the street, and various rem- nants discarded by urban dwellers that are creatively integrated and purposefully used in housing for this demographic. In 1993, New York Times writer Patricia Leigh Brown interviewed Pepe Otero, a Manhattan homeless man who had constructed a makeshift struc- ture out of discarded objects in an effort to carve out the closest thing to a home that he could manifest on the streets of Manhattan. Instead of being ashamed of his current living situation, he seemed proud, almost boastful about it. ‘You know something? It took char- acter to build that. A lot of feeling went into it. Building it shaped my attitude. You realize you can do things for yourself. People who build for themselves have an interest in themselves. As long as you don’t forget, you’re not forgotten’. What is most paradoxical about urban ephemeral shelters is that they are often looked upon as primitive by the majority of the urban population. As necessity is the mother of invention, and innovation is essentially born out of need, it is these impermanent
spaces that make use of materials indigenous to urban centres, con- sistently adaptable to all conditions, and often amongst the most sus- tainable as they can be constructed and demolished with little or no damage to the environment (40% of emissions are caused by building construction and demolition) and are constructed from re-used – and therefore sustainable – materials. Bernard Rudofsky wrote (in 1964) that it is simple, even primitive dwelling types that we escape to when we need any form of relaxation (to get away from our technological mania), and it is in primitive surroundings that our chances of finding relaxation hinge upon. These anonymous builders around the world are providing an untapped source of architectural innovation. So how does one recognise architect-free architecture? By its very nature it is defined by unpredictable streetscapes, streetscapes whose aesthetic changes on a daily basis. It is a return to vernacular that addresses local necessity by using local resources – an evolving architecture that speaks to its ephemeral contexts. Temporary shelter comes as a result of years of experimentation rather than years of architectural education. This vernacular, an impermanent vernacular, is creating not only creating architect-free architecture on the street level, but an architecture of empowerment that forces the boundaries of innovation. p
1 Patricia Leigh Brown. ‘The Architecture of Those Called Homeless’, The New York Times , March 28, 1993. 2 Simon Whelan. ‘One Third of the World’s Urban Population Lives in a Slum’, International Committee of the Fourth International , <http://www.wsws. org/articles/2004/feb2004/slum-f17.shtml>, February 17, 2004.
3 Patricia Leigh Brown. ‘The Architecture of Those Called Homeless’, The New York Times , March 28, 1993. 4 Bernard Rudofsky. Architecture Without Architects: An Introduction to Non- Pedigreed Architecture . New York: Doubleday and Company, 1964. p6
onsite 19: street, streets and lanes, the straight and narrow, wide and busy
46
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator