Studio Perú: Producing the right to the city

According to Henri Lefebvre, residents of an equitable city can participate in decision-making about how space is used and created. They can also appropriate spatial conditions in order to use, change, produce new spaces. The right to the city is not, however, a purely individual right but rather a collectively held right that enables individual and collective spatial production through social practices. To facilitate these conditions, architectural practice and education need to develop material practices that are process-driven, collaborative, and tactical. Working in informal communities requires this shift for architects and provides opportunities to learn from people who appropriate space daily. Formal efforts to “improve” informality have failed and informality will soon be a worldwide condition. The studio work shown here demonstrates an architectural process anchored by research, observation, and interaction with informal communities in order to define tactical processes for which the architect is one of many authors. Its products are open-ended, adaptable to change across time and space. In this case, U.S. and Peruvian students worked with non-profit IntuyLab in the Alto Perú neighborhood of Lima, Perú. After researching and mapping the country, city, and neighborhood, students participated in a workshop about children’s knowledge of public space. Children told stories, drew maps, and led walks of important places in their neighborhood. The architecture students then generating ideas for public space interventions and presented to local residents. After returning to the U.S., they refined these ideas, articulating adaptable, tactical systems based on local material practices.

Volume Editors

ISBN
978-1-944214-30-2