Basic prefabricated constructions as a strategy to address housing shortage in South American slums

• Iñigo Hernández Aycart ^[1]
  1. [1] Doctoral Candidate in Restoration of Historical Constructions, Urban Evolution and Refurbishment (UPV/EHU)
• Localización: Renovation wave: 12º Congreso Europeo sobre Eficiencia Energética y Sostenibilidad en Arquitectura y Urbanismo – 5º Congreso Internacional de Construcción Avanzada: Bilbao, 29-30 Septiembre 2021 / Rufino Javier Hernández Minguillón (ed. lit.), 2021, ISBN 978-84-1319-374-8, págs. 57-74
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Construcción prefabricada básica como estrategia de superación masiva de la pobreza habitacional en los asentamientos informales latinoamericanos
• Enlaces
  • Texto Completo Libro
• Resumen

  • This paper approaches the problem of improving the habitats of Latin Americans living in poverty. It looks into a strategy of saturation using basic prefabricated housing solutions as a method to efficiently, socially and sustainably address the housing deficit. The research is based on the case of an Argentine CSO, TECHO, which has many years experience building prefabricated emergency houses in the country’s informal settlements. This CSO recently went through a process of designing and implementing a new design that seeks to offer a flexible and incremental prefabricated solution. The main objective was to support the efforts of the inhabitants of informal settlements to build their own shelters. After the main problems of the earlier emergency house design used by TECHO were identified and the way that dwellers produce their habitat was understood, the development of the new design explored different existing types of prefabricated systems, seeking a means by which to improve the realization of TECHO’s objectives. This process led to the Vivienda Semilla, a prefabricated, modular low-cost and easy-to-build system, adaptable to a diversity of different cases of vulnerability. In addition, the building envelope was replacable, creating efficiency in terms of the use of material resources as the structural elements of the building can be maintained when users take further steps towards obtaining quality housing. Once the design was finalised, more than 100 instalations were executed between 2018 and 2020 in different informal settlements all over the country. Now, a a few years on, the results of that work can be studied and reflected on.