The main structural grid used is 36m x 36m, derived from practical

requirements. The structural grid is separate from the internal module

making it independent from internal additions and changes.

The plan of dwelling type is based on a functional separation of service and

kitchen spaces, general spaces, and sleeping spaces. This offers maximum
flexibility to suit future needs of occupiers who will determine the forms
themselves.

The boundary walls of all dwellings are built first. The simplest dwelling thus
consists of an undivided space, with water and drainage laid on in the service
yard, which at the outset will serve as a kitchen. From this starting point the
owner fills in and extends his house. Sanitary and Kitchen fittings are fixed
using standard components. Services are grouped to avoid long installation
runs.

The structural system has shallow concrete foundation pads, a floor slab
resting on the ground and concrete columns and beams, supporting a
corrugated asbestos roof.

All basic dwellings are single storey, when the upper storey is required; the
original roof acts as shuttering for concrete.

There is no traffic within each developed area, apart from service traffic
which penetrates on several wider roads. Parking areas in the first stage are
mainly reserved for public buildings.

https://iqbalaalam.wordpress.com/tag/toivo-korhonen/
Summary

Adapt to the needs of the inhabitant, and give space to their aspirations; endure, harbor,
enable. These could be the virtues of a good house, even at the risk that the
implementation of these benefits means the slow disappearance of the original
structure. How can the architect resist that condemnation? The acceptance of a certain
independence and vitality of the architecture, which is triggered as soon as the work is
finished, could contain an answer.

Keywords: Architecture - Peru, social housing, architecture contests, self-construction,

neighborhood, progressive growth.

Abstract

To adapt to the inhabitant's needs, give space to his dreams, to last, shelter, enable: this
could describe the qualities of a good house, although putting them into practice may mean
the gradual disappearance of the original structure. How can the architect resist this
sentence? Perhaps by accepting a degree of independence and vitality in the architecture,
set free the moment the work is finished.

Key words: Architecture - Peru, social housing, architectural competitions, do-it-yourself

construction, neighborhood, progressive growth.

Presentation
This article corresponds to the material developed from the research thesis "Architecture,
life and transformations" for its exhibition at the IV Ibero-American Architecture Biennial,
held in Lima in October 2004, whose theme revolved around social housing in Latin
America.

Composed of 26 proposals, and more than thirty years since its inception, the Pilot Project 1
experience of PREVI (1) in Lima, Peru, is a research subject due to the valuable complexity
of the factors involved: the collage of projects, the variety typological, the experimental
nature of the proposal and the time it has been subjected to different self-managed
interventions.
We travel to Lima to reconstruct the process of transformation of the projects carried out
from sketch surveys on the original plans, photographic surveys and interviews with the
families that inhabit them. From the lifting of the current houses and the crossing with the
family history, the articulation between the architect's project and the inhabitant's project is
discovered. The research emphasizes the housing process, closely linked to family history.

The PREVI Experimental Housing Project

During the sixties, the precariousness of spontaneous settlements and the deterioration of
some sectors of Lima stimulated a series of initiatives by the Peruvian government and
UNDP (2) aimed at incorporating housing policies results of three pilot projects. Of them,
the one with the greatest connotation was Pilot Project 1 , which through an international
contest (3) and a national one (4), materialized the recent discussions about the
architecture of housing - to a certain extent, a counterproposal to the modern paradigms of
multifamily housing. Among the concepts proposed by the contest were the rationalization,
modulation, typing, progressive growth, flexibility and function. Each typology proposed
different versions for different family groups, as well as systems for the growth of the units.
Although the original objective of both competitions (5) was the construction of 1,500
homes from the winning projects, the interest shown by the jury (6)it resulted in a
fortuitous but decisive event for the future of PREVI: the 26 proposals received were built in
a set of 500 units. The emphasis was on the architectural and technical exploration
proposed by the projects, for which an ININVI plant (7) was installed in place for the
prefabrication of the building components and the subsequent assistance to users in the
expansion of their homes.
The execution of PREVI was faced with political circumstances that delayed various phases
of its development; the institutional crises of the seventies were an obstacle to the
continuity of the project. Even so, the Development Group (8)was able to carry out the
projects, and make a detailed follow-up of the construction processes demonstrating its
viability in economic terms, among other aspects. The tensions PREVI - government of turn
had as a final result a delay in the process of allocation of housing, discontinuity in the
processes of advice and, finally, a certain voluntary oblivion of the importance of
experience.

Time, cases
I. The separation of the pedestrian and the automobile promotes the
consolidation of neighborhood communities
The squares are the unit of neighborhood and public space of PREVI. Its size in relation to a
certain number of houses has facilitated the organization of the neighbors, who have been
responsible for maintaining them, qualifying both the neighborhood and housing.
The PREVI Development Group proposed a structure of small squares, interconnected by
pedestrian passages, that articulate the multiple grouping forms of the original projects. An
urban order based on a social and spatial unit, the neighborhood squares, was founded in
this way.
The squares and passages build a pedestrian interior with notable characteristics. Its
consolidation is due to multiple reasons; the care of the vegetation in charge of the
community, a condition of silence and inner tranquility, the play of the children under the
care of the neighbors and a continuous skirting that supports the typological variety make
the squares a valuable urban corner.

II. The potential of a home varies according to its location in the

whole
The neighborhood is not a homogeneous fabric that is cut where the property ends. The
composition of the urban system can define how good the sewing is that the city will later
make with a new neighborhood. The urban support and the incorporation of uses that
exceed the scale of the original project make PREVI a neighborhood functionally integrated
to the rest of the city.
The answer to the need to combine 26 different typologies was the construction of an urban
support from elements as dissimilar but complementary as are the neighborhood squares,
the pedestrian passages, vehicular accesses, parking lots and a park. This composition
meant that each house had a different role in the neighborhood, which translated into new
programs incorporated into the house related to its position in PREVI. On the vehicular
streets the commerce is concentrated, as well as on the pedestrian avenue; Around the
park are located the new schools that use it as a patio.
III. Family groups are diverse and multiple, their processes
determine the growth of housing.
Public housing policies have had a homogenous and typified vision of the user, which has
stiffened the economic housing project. This, multiplied several times in the city, comes into
conflict with the variability of the realities of the family, therefore the neighborhood,
therefore the city.
The crossing of family histories with the transformation of housing reveals one of the keys
to the process: thepattern of family evolution is one of the main engines for each family to
meet requirements that vary with the years according to the following stage:
Installation, the family introduces minor modifications to ensure the property and define the
own image of the house;
Densification , the family grows and incorporates new cores, which demands the greatest
constructive effort, mainly bedrooms and new bathrooms are built, in addition to the
incorporation of other uses;
Consolidation and diversification ; In addition to the latest investments in terminations, the
house is subdivided functionally into apartments for several families.
Understanding this pattern requires thinking more than a typical user in a diverse and
dynamic family group over time. The pattern Installation / Densification / DiversificationIt
yields results such as multifamily housing, a reality that is not captured by public policies in
terms of the inhabitant.

IV. The initial housing is a support for a new image and new uses
The house in PREVI is a transformations platform, the construction of a plinth on which the
city is naturally superimposed. The virtues of this process are related to the housing
potential of being an income artifact: the transformations carried out by the user are
investments that can report income to the family, through a business or the rental of part of
the home.
On the other hand, the platform means the possibility for each family to build their own
image, incorporating the house with the simple mimesis into the complete landscape of the
city. In this way, one that could be identified as a social neighborhood-with its institutional
connotation- is now part of an integrated popular neighborhood.
The consequences of this concept on the project can be collected in the permanences and
the relation slackness / rigidity. Permanencias, are those constructive or programmatic
elements that endure in the process of transformation. The slack / rigidity scheme
establishes the disposition of the structural elements and spaces that the inhabitant has to
incorporate new structures. These are the rules that the inhabitant must interpret in order
to expand the house according to certain parameters of the project; hence the importance
of the arrangement of these elements in the initial platform, since they depend on the
possibilities of the final house.
V.
Growth around a yard ensures the environmental conditions of the home
The patio plays a major role in the houses, not only in spatial terms but also in the clarity
that it establishes for the growth process. The housing conditions of the houses make that
in many cases it is the main patrimony of the house, being one of the most important
stays. The inhabitant is able to interpret the role that he / she fulfills and is ultimately the
element that ensures growth without putting into play the original environmental qualities of
the house (9) .

PREVI, neighborhood and city

Collage City
The city understood as a collage -not only composed of different macro interventions, but
also of countless microtransformations- contributes to the complexity of the social fabric
and the urban integration of popular neighborhoods. So, the collage city is a living city, a
complex city.
Neighborhood / group of houses
It is necessary to understand a neighborhood not as a group of houses, but as an
association of facilities and houses, where the urban structure and architecture are vital to
trigger a successful evolution of the neighborhood and housing.
The PREVI college promotes the use of public spaces with the development of its own
activities in the park, generating a superposition of activities that give a great urban
intensity to the neighborhood.
Neighborhood = urban unit
The close relationship between the urban unit -the plaza- and the social unit -the
neighborhood community capable of organizing itself- promotes the appropriation and care
of the collective public space.
In contrast to the homogeneity of conventional institutional urbanizations, the system of
squares and pedestrian passages represents the permanence of a complex layout rich in
diverse urban situations.

"The 35 years of PREVI deserve to be celebrated as an architectural lesson: of humility,

because the courses of the project will never be frozen to the original vision of the author in
all its aspects; and confirmation, as the initial works, strategies, postulates and the
conviction of its authors and managers began the formation of an urban neighborhood from
many points of view. "
Rodrigo Prez de Arce, 2004.