‘COMMUNITY’ AS THE BASIC ARCHITECTURAL UNIT: RETHINKING PRACTICE THROUGH THE EXPERIENCE OF ASF, ECUADOR

Abstract

Societies build for reasons, including and, beyond the need for shelter. The layers of meaning that make up the building process include status, power, social convention, values and ideas on aesthetics. This inherent layering of meaning through building ensures that every built work as a deliberate act – consciously or unconsciously – communicates meaning and gives shape and identity to those that build. While some contexts call for an occupation of open space as opposed to building, it must noted that in these cases the decision not to build can still be considered an architectural decision. Architectural history traditionally deals with individual buildings, yet historically building rarely exists outside the creation of multiple structures within some form of collective. Here the daily face-to-face interactions of dynamic social networks and patterns of interaction in these collective spaces ultimately define what we recognise as settlement. To comprehend the values that underpin settlement, the expression should be seen through the ‘collective’ rather than an ‘individual’ form of expression. How one intervenes in such collectives and how to provide a relevant and appropriate service that facilitates the needs and wants of multiple authors through architectural design has challenged the very principles upon which the profession is built. This need for more effective and considered approach to design has seen a global shift in practices and institutions to devise ‘alternative’ processes of design that acknowledge multiple authors, employ user-centered methods that ultimately allow for the ‘facilitation’ of collective expressions that aim to give way to shared and distributed decision-making in systems that should be critically participative. From this position the authors propose that the collective or ‘community’ should be considered as the basic architectural unit of design when architects and designers work in dynamic contexts of housing and informal settlements. By embracing complexity and uncertainty, strict traditional design control is replaced by fluid design processes. Lessons learnt while teaching the post graduate Alternative Practice module at the University of Johannesburg’s Architecture Department will be presented as well as experiences with the Architecture Sans Frontiere’s ‘Change by Design’ methodology workshop/training in Ecuador, Quito. The theoretical basis of this study draws from diverse literature sources, emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of the topic of participative design and professional practice through collective authorship. The paper concludes by identifying ways to rethink spatial design practice based on concepts of co-production

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