Beyond the freedom to build: Long-term outcomes of Elemental’s incremental housing in Quinta Monroy

Abstract

In 2003, the Chilean architecture firm Elemental began to revisit the idea of partially completed housing harnessing the productive capacities of the informal process within a more formal framework. The Quinta Monroy project in the northern Chilean city of Iquique was the first such project and involved the in-situ replacement of an informal settlement. The desire of residents was for a middle-class house that was beyond the scope of their budget or the subsidy. The Elemental project at Quinta Monroy comprised 93 expandable houses designed in parallel buildings and organized in four courtyards aiming to promote community interaction and maintain neighbors’ affinities. This paper investigates the process of housing adaptation through self-construction twelve years after the residents received their homes in 2005. The strategy to promote resident-driven expansions has been successful as 92 out of 93 households expanded their homes. The most significant concerns focused on the deterioration of living standards due to progressive and uncontrollable extensions which might have significant impacts on the settlement development. The findings from this paper focus on the neighbors’ negotiations for housing extensions and the risk of the re-creation of precarious living environments evidencing limitations for unassisted or spontaneous incremental schemes of housing development.

Re-thinking Elemental’s incremental housing: Residential Satisfaction and resident-driven adaptations in Villa Verde, Chile

“…This study focuses mainly on the analysis of the Micro or housing level. Previous studies about incremental housing in Chile Mora et al, 2020;O'Brien et al, 2020;Carrasco & O'Brien, 2021) observed complex social relationships that requires further analysis which is beyond the scope of this study and should be covered in a future research project.…”

“…Settlement management and inclusive governance remains a challenge beyond the globally recognized housing designs which balance individual and collective incremental development. Longterm outcomes from sites and services projects and studies about the first Elemental's housing project 'Quinta Monroy' (Millones S., 2017;Carrasco & O'Brien, 2021)…”

Sustentabilidade socioambiental na arquitetura incremental em habitação de interesse social

“…Sobressai-se o objetivo de promover a interação da comunidade e manter as afinidades dos vizinhos. O projeto começou em 2003 e os moradores receberem suas casas em 2005 [15]. Fonte: [13] A Figura 3 mostra o resultado das obras de ampliação construídas após entrega dos embriões.…”

Desestabilizar, desprogramar, deformar: estéticas periféricas como caminhos projetuais em cidades latino-americanas

“…Mais de uma década após sua inauguração, grande parte das famílias originais seguem habitando a Quinta Monroy, adicionando e subtraindo partes. Sabemos que há sim, um conjunto de críticas consistentes a este projeto, conforme apontam Carrasco & O'Brien (2021), mas nos parece que, além de fazer coro com as qualidades que dali podemos extrair, as críticas ainda são feitas, em grande medida, atreladas a valores externos à comunidade em questão: valores e diretrizes da academia, do saber legitimado da expertise técnica, considerados centrais e, consequentemente, legítimos.…”