Project condition

22Lima’s invasiones emerged in the late 1940s and became one of the fastest forms of urbanization in Lima, occupying hills, riverfronts, haciendas, and desert areas in the outskirts of the city. On December 24^th 1954, hundreds of families squatted arid areas near Hacienda San Juan, 15 kilometers south of Lima, claiming for a place to build their houses and to get a chance to participate in the city and the society. State agency CNV – directed by Santiago Agurto and Manuel Valega – responded quickly to these unusual circumstances with a new strategy that proposed a different form of city building. This new idea reflected the limited resources of the population, as well as their ability to self-build their houses. (fig. 7.0)

FIG. 7.0

CIUDAD DE DIOS IN THE DISTRICT OF SAN JUAN DE MIRAFLORES, LIMA, 2014.

Urbanization and housing system

23The Ciudad de Dios urban project encompassed 1428 housing units organized in two zones (A and K), which shared public services and commercial facilities in the central spine. The latter included planned spaces for a market, church, municipal hall, theater, post office, community spaces, retail, and commercial facilities. All these spaces encouraged the interaction between neighborhoods and also attracted future residential expansions. The deployment of educational and sports facilities in the center of each superblock also stimulated the gathering of residents in the residential core. (fig. 7.1)

FIG. 7.1

AERIAL VIEW OF CIUDAD DE DIOS, 1962.

24The open streets allowed for neighborhood additions by the state housing agencies, as much as it promoted new squatters to occupy empty adjoining areas. Later on, the construction of Los Heroes Avenue brought the metropolitan scale into the neighborhood. Neighboring these central areas, the long housing blocks were systematically organized around central spaces, creating parks according to the site’s topography. The blocks presented different lengths, but always maintained a basic paired structure (deep lots back-to-back) and an overall width. The housing presented one unique typology, based on the existenzminimum idea, but expected to grow progressively over the time, as learned from the informal city. The lots presented an average dimension of two hundred square meters (ten per twenty meters) and its dwelling units were placed at the front side (with a five meters setback) in order to define the street façade. (fig. 7.2)

FIG. 7.2

RECONSTRUCTION IN AXONOMETRIC VIEW OF HOUSING CLUSTER (THEN AND NOW).

Forms of development

25The relocation of Ciudad de Dios squatter settlement into the CNV’s urban project started in the late 1950s, even though it was not completed. The neighborhood lacked water, sewage, street paving, and all public structures that would be built later in the 1960s. Nevertheless, many people moved to Ciudad, and developed their living environment progressively. The ones that never moved out from the squatter settlement across Atocongo road were later absorbed by the renewal projects of the 1960s such as Urbanización San Juan and Atocongo among others. The main infrastructure of Atocongo Road has been one of the major elements of the transformation and development of this area. Lots adjoining the road were transformed into commercial buildings, while the market became a hub for entrepreneurs and businessmen in the area. The neighborhood’s streets, defined by the 5-meter setbacks, have completely changed over time. Many lots were subdivided into two properties promoting vertical growth, changing the proportion of the street due to frontal expansions. Moreover, some of the residential streets have been closed down for security reasons, but the atmosphere of the neighborhood is still in good shape, and the area is prosperous and keeps growing. (fig. 7.3)

FIG. 7.3

TYPICAL STREET SECTION IN CIUDAD DE DIOS, 2014.

Project Conditions

26Due to the overwhelming growing population of Lima that produced the rise of squatter settlements in the northern outskirts of Lima, the Peruvian government promoted, designed and built a new satellite city 25 kilometers north of Lima in an arid site through the INVI Housing Agency, that was directed by Luis Marcial. Prime Minister Pedro Beltrán promoted the project and it was sponsored by the “Alliance for Progress” program and financed by the Inter-American Development Bank. This new incremental housing project was a model of development encouraged by the government and therefore subsidized by the state for low-income families, who were able to enroll into credit programs. The Ciudad Satélite de Ventanilla project contemplated therefore several housing phases, services, industry, and other metropolitan uses. (fig. 8.0)

FIG. 8.0

CIUDAD SATELITE DE VENTANILLA IN THE DISTRICT OF VENTANILLA, LIMA, 2014.

Urbanization and housing systems

27The overall urban project included nearly 20 000 housing units, industries, and commercial areas as well as a natural beach with sports and recreational facilities. The first phase included 1 813 expandable units surrounded by parks and plazas, and interconnected through walkways with stores, schools, and kindergartens, among other services. The urbanization system was based on long linear blocks that created pedestrian pathways to promote social interaction. The open grid allowed for growth, evolution, and continuities; not only through the extension of streets and pathways, but also through the creation of new patterns connected to the grid. (fig. 8.1)

FIG. 8.1

AERIAL VIEW OF VENTANILLA, 1963.

28The three housing typologies are based on the minimum dwelling concept, but planned to grow incrementally over time, as recommended by the CRAV in 1958. Type A is a C-shape unit that separates the basic activities of the family and places an inner patio at the front. Type B is a T-shape unit that proposes an intermediate space separating the humid area from the bedrooms and living; and type C is a rectangular volume that compresses all activities together. These typologies are deployed in pairs, and respond in different ways to CRAV’s casa elemental concept. This idea proposed an average lot of 160 square meters at the front of which a small dwelling unit of 60 square meters would configure the street structure. An area of nearly 100 square meters served as an open area, waiting for progressive growth. (fig. 8.2)

FIG. 8.2

DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION IN AXONOMETRIC VIEW OF HOUSING CLUSTER (THEN AND NOW).

Forms of development

29The project was never completed as planned. Due to political and economic reasons the project stopped after the construction of Urbanización Civil (known as Ventanilla) and Urbanización Grau. Without implementing services, infrastructure and other basic elements to achieve a totally independent urban life, and remained a suburban development of Lima. Ventanilla was nevertheless occupied throughout the 1960s and from then onwards started to develop progressively. Families began to occupy houses and to build additions at the front, back and top of the units. Neighborhood organizations worked collectively on urban and infrastructure improvements such as bringing water, sewage, and other basic services. In addition, several parking lots have been transformed into parks, plazas, and sport facilities, whereas new health, commercial, and educational facilities have been built at the neighborhood’s entrance. Since the 1980s, squatter settlements and informal growth has emerged in the surrounding areas becoming the predominant form of urbanity. The urban structure of Ventanilla has however been able to articulate the area and set the standards of sound living conditions. (fig. 8.3)

FIG. 8.3

TYPICAL PEDESTRIAN PATHWAYS SECTION IN VENTANILLA.

Project conditions

30Due to the uncontrolled rise of squatter settlements in the outskirts of Lima and the enormous housing deficit, the PREVI competition was promoted by the Peruvian President and architect Fernando Belaúnde Terry. Implemented between 1968 and 1975, the competition was financed by Peru’s Banco de la Vivienda and sponsored by the United Nations Development Program office in Lima. Its main objective was to outline solutions for the overwhelming informal urbanization of developing countries and to create new models for low-cost housing. In this context, the goal of PREVI’s director British architect Peter Land, was to explore current thinking on prefabrication and mass-housing production and adapt it to the constraints and socio-cultural context of a developing city such as Lima. For this, the competition process included 13 selected Peruvian and 13 invited foreign architects. (fig. 9.0)

FIG. 9.0

PROYECTO EXPERIMENTAL DE VIVIENDA- PREVI IN THE DISTRICT OF LOS OLIVOS, LIMA, 2014.

Urbanization and housing systems

31All these conditions were elaborated in the competition brief, which later became the theoretical structure for the development of the PREVI-Lima project that combined all competition proposals. The PREVI urban project presented 2 000 housing units on a desert site of nearly 50 hectares next to the Pan-American Highway, 8 kilometers north of Lima’s downtown. The PREVI plan was thought for an initial settlement of 8 400 inhabitants, growing to a population that could eventually surpass 12 000. The project adopts therefore a high-density and low-rise concept, minimizing built space and maximizing public spaces in different forms, such as parks, plazas, and alamedas (landscaped pedestrian spines). The housing system is organized in clusters of about 20 units, creating public spaces with a community sense. (fig. 9.1)

FIG. 9.1

AERIAL VIEW OF PREVI, 1975.

32The arrangement of these clusters, placed along the pedestrian spine, guarantees a pedestrian scale and traffic separation in the neighborhood. The housing typologies considered in the project responded to the different typologies presented in the competitions and organized in the first phase of the development. The lots are no smaller than 80 square meters, nor larger than 150 square meters, with a built area between 60 square meters and 120 square meters. All units are one- and two-story patio houses, which could be expanded up to three-stories high (casa que crece), based on a standardized low-cost material for mass production. The project also considered different family sizes and interpreted Lima’s traditional public spaces – plazas, church atria, paseos and alamedas – in order to encourage social interaction. (fig. 9.2)

FIG. 9.2

DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION IN AXONOMETRIC VIEW OF HOUSING CLUSTER (THEN AND NOW).

Forms of development

33PREVI was never completed as planned. Due to political and economic reasons the project stopped after completion of the first phase with nearly 500 units, leaving the second, third, and fourth phase for future transformations. Without having a fully developed urban life in the surrounding areas, PREVI continued to depend on Lima’s services. PREVI was anyhow occupied throughout the late 1970s, and started to develop progressively from the 1980s onwards.

34For this reason, many commercial activities appeared on the ground floor offering services and eventually encouraging vertical growth. When residents started occupying the houses, these were transformed by their needs resulting in new additions at the front, back and top of the units. Additionally, neighborhood organizations worked collectively to appropriate public spaces. They for instance territorialized open space by means of religious idols, nursed the parks, and created new sports areas. By contrast, several plazas were fenced to prevent outsiders to access them, and many gardens have been illegally privatized. Even though many spaces have changed, the main pedestrian spine and the principal open spaces still act as a superstructure that ensures the connection between public spaces and operates as a place for social interaction. (fig. 9.3)

FIG. 9.3

TYPICAL COMMUNAL AREA, A PLAZA AND A SMALL PARK IN PREVI.

Project conditions

35On May 11^th 1971, nearly 9 000 families (approximately 45 000 people) squatted the desert area known as Tablada de Lurin to establish their houses, but were immediately relocated by the government to southern Lima. Following the urban project of Miguel Romero Sotelo – architect at the JNV – the population took possession of the lots and started to urbanize the deserted area made available for them. Following the concept of the satellite city, the Comunidad Urbana Autogestionaria Villa El Salvador (CUAVES) was organized by Sotelo in three zones (residential, industrial, and agrarian) and planned as a new democratic model of a self-organized community that would self-build progressively. In this project, the formal and the political were structured by a repetitive pattern that organized the population at all levels. Accordingly, the resulting modulo urbano (urban module) emerged as the encounter of society, state and architecture to overcome scarcity. (fig. 10.0)

FIG. 10.0

COMUNIDAD URBANA AUTOGESTIONARIA DE VILLA EL SALVADOR IN THE DISTRICT OF VILLA EL SALVADOR, 2014.

Urbanization and housing systems

36The CUAVES urban project is a product of an urban and a political ideal of this period. The public space of the residential module plays therefore a key role in the organization of the community, acting as a social engine, and its linkage produced a network of urban life. These programmed and landscaped voids allow for cultural development and social interaction within each neighborhood. From the plaza of a residential module to the park of the district – according to the different scales of open areas – the linked voids articulate the social and political structure, as much as the urban development of CUAVES. (fig. 10.1)

FIG. 10.1

AERIAL VIEW OF VILLA EL SALVADOR, 1983.

37The structure of the module is based on the repetition of a singular superblock, which consists of 24 identical lots of 140 square meters forming a square of 288 meters-long sides. This in turn includes 16 elongated blocks surrounding a central open space, ensuring dwelling spaces for 384 families and a community space that could allocate recreational, educational, or social activities. This urban module is repeated 185 times to create the entire community, providing the right size and structure to support the socio-political system established at VES. This module, also presents some variations associated to the topography and scale of infrastructure. Sometimes it is divided into two, to allow markets, schools and sport facilities to be integrated in the grid (fig. 10.2)

FIG. 10.2

DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION IN AXONOMETRIC VIEW OF HOUSING CLUSTER (THEN AND NOW).

Forms of development

38Villa El Salvador has developed into a prosperous district of the city. Within the project, four residential modules generate a large neighborhood that shares a cluster of public services and social infrastructure that combines all typical family needs for a sound urban life. Within pedestrian reach, the spaces offer most essential activities including many local services. Similarly, there are spaces reserved for schools and other educational facilities to attend the neighbors. Residential plazas allocate facilities built by the neighbors that address their needs at a local scale. Although most of the lots are used as dwellings, most of which have grown vertically, they now present many other uses such as shops, storage, and workshops. Likewise, small stores and local services have appeared at ground level in the lots facing inner streets and plazas; whereas the lots facing the main avenues have changed into commercial uses operating at a metropolitan scale. Additionally, the avenue medians now serve as linear parks, plazas; recreation areas, markets; temporary health centers, and multipurpose platforms. (fig. 10.3)

FIG. 10.3

TYPICAL COMMERCIAL STREET SECTION AND CORNER IN VES.

Project conditions

39During the 1980s, the economic and housing crisis worsened, getting to a point where squatting desert or agricultural areas was the most recurred solution by immigrants arriving to Lima and other urban poor. President Belaunde’s housing policies to regulate urban growth by controlling new squatter settlements in the city were ineffective. The economic upheavals produced an unsteady political climate that allowed these actions to happen. In this context of crisis, the Municipal government of Mayor Alfonso Barrantes, decided to partake in the search for new, fast, and effective answers to solve the popular demands for mass housing. As a result, Lima’s government launched the Proyecto Especial de Huaycán (PEH), a participatory design project that was able to address the claims of thousands of people demanding the Huaycán ravine lands to build their homes. (fig. 11.0)

FIG. 11.0

PROGRAMA ESPECIAL HUAYCAN IN THE DISTRICT OF ATE, LIMA, 2014.

Urbanization and Housing Systems

40The planning initiative was taken by the PEH office that designed an urban project based on a community pattern of superblocks named as the Unidad Comunal de Vivienda (UCV). A process of communally organized work ensued. The urbanization system of PEH – lead by Eduardo Figari and a team of architects – started with the organization of the population in groups of 60 families on average. They would jointly plan the UVC, the community spaces, and the work to be undertaken over time. The UCV presents an average area of 1 hectare and is defined by a row of houses built along its outer limits and organized by a crossroad that generates the central space. This inner corner becomes the place to allocate community buildings and public facilities. (fig. 11.1)

FIG. 11.1

AERIAL VIEW OF HUAYCÁN, 1985.

41These actions not only reinforced the corner as a core of urbanity and social life in the neighborhood, but they also ensured urban encounters in every UCV. Similarly, aligning housing façades to the sidewalks ensured the streets as places of social exchange and interaction. In this way, the pattern of development structured by the UCV, not only created a neighborhood identity that bridged the sense of community and the need of privacy; it also helped the whole area grow with equality. Within the superblocks, the lots vary between 90 and 120 square meters and were planned according to the typologies proposed by the architects to occupy up to 60 % of the area. (fig. 11.2)

FIG. 11.2

DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION IN AXONOMETRIC VIEW OF HOUSING CLUSTER (THEN AND NOW).

Forms of development

42The Huaycán community, as many other neighborhoods in Peru, has developed its urban and social conditions due to the merger of society, state, and architecture, transforming specific circumstances into forms of development. Recognizing local knowledge and self-help organization, the community managed limited resources to build community facilities such as public spaces, schools, churches, and a city hall. The organization was led by a team of architects who would direct the assemblies and guided the decision of what and how to build. All these processes include the work of different agents as much as the absolute dedication of the neighborhood organizations throughout time, respecting agreements and goals.

43As Figari explained, the idea of progressive in Huaycán not only embraces the construction phasing, but also the social process of UCV’s creation as an urban cluster. Similarly, the participation of all agents encouraged a design process contemplating concepts of flexibility, temporality, and mobility. Although the blocks are fully consolidated and have evolved into a variety of urban forms, the original ideas driving the project are still evident in the urban structure. Nowadays, Huaycán grows gradually and presents itself as a place for prosperity. (fig. 11.3)

FIG. 11.3

TYPICAL STREET SECTION IN HUAYCÁN.