User-based design for inclusive urban transformation: learning from ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ dwelling practices in Guayaquil, Ecuador

Abstract

In Latin American cities, modes of housing and settlement production are rapidly shifting with city-making becoming an increasingly unequal process. While the Latin American region was once a cradle for ground-breaking research on incremental urban development, more recent housing policies have radically disengaged from incremental dwelling typologies and socially engaged design practices. Taking a people-centred approach, this article documents the ways in which urban dwellers contribute to the production of the urban environment in Guayaquil, the largest city of Ecuador. Grounded in an intensive case study methodology, the inquiry focuses on the ways in which users resourcefully transform, adapt or contest space at the micro and the meso scales in both consolidated low-income settlements and state-led resettlement housing projects, most commonly present in the consolidating city of Guayaquil today. On this basis, the study examines how and to what extent spontaneously produced dwelling environments may inform new formal housing arrangements in the city and vice versa. It reflects on key principles for a new set of housing policies and design strategies suggesting the cultivation of a ‘variety of choices’ and draws attention to user-based design and housing mechanisms that foster inclusive urban transformation.

Keywords:

• incremental housing
• consolidated low-income settlements
• government housing
• user-based adaptations
• resettlement
• Ecuador

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Richard Ronald, Paavo Monkkonen, and the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Strongly influenced by John Turner's work, the World Bank popularised incremental housing, initially by promoting sites-and-services programmes (1972–1975), shifting to slum upgrading when major difficulties were experienced in accessing land (1976–1979) and within economic constraints of cost recovery from earlier projects, finally placing emphasis on local employment activities and microfinance for small-scale enterprises (1980–1983) (Stein, 1991, p. 11–17).

2. Dandora Sites and Services Project (1975–1983) in Nairobi, Kenya was one of the first major ventures in sites-and-services made by the World Bank. Some other key examples of incremental housing projects are: Belapur Incremental Housing, Navi Mumbai, India by Charles Correa (1980s); the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) and Khuda-ki-Basti Incremental Housing Scheme in Karachi, Pakistan by Arif Hasan, (1982, 1986); Aranya Community Housing, Indore, India by Doshi, (1989).

3. More recent incremental and in situ upgrading and community-based design initiatives are: the world-known example ELEMENTAL, Chile; Proyecto Urbano Integral (PUI) Medellín; Favela Bairro by Jorge Mario Jáuregui, Rio de Janeiro; SEHAB Municipal Upgrading Program, São Paulo; Villa 31, Javier Fernandez Castro, Buenos Aires; Slum Dwellers International, Africa; ACCA (Asian Coalition for Community Action).

4. Construcción sin ingeniería. Se impone el uso de normas y nuevas técnicas de edificación (2016, April 23). El Expreso, Guayaquil, p. 18.

5. El Niño is a natural process, intensified through the phenomenon of global warming, of warm streams of ocean water that develops on the open seas of the Pacific Ocean and then heads towards the coastal zones. The presence of El Niño can significantly influence weather patterns, which in Guayaquil are characterised by exceptionally long periods of persistent and intensive rainfall and changing temperatures.

6. Tierras del plan Socio Vivienda en disputa legal (2011, March 20). El Expreso, Guayaquil, p. 12.

7. Municipio quiso comprar esos lotes (2008, July 31). El Universo, Guayaquil.

8. 7 razones de protesta en Socio Vivienda 2 (2015, September 1). El Universo, Guayaquil, p. 7.

9. Vecinos de Socio Vivienda alertan de mal uso de casas (2015, August 20). El Universo, Guayaquil, p. 4.

10. The 15 intensive cases of Suburbio comprised 32 dwellings in total, of which 6 houses were evicted. Of 26 dwellings that could be studied, 11 involved subdivisions. See Table 1.

11. ‘Los aires’ refers to vertical spaces in ‘the air’ or upper floors involved in processes of home transformation in Latin America's ‘innerburbs’ (Ward et al., 2015, p. 161).

12. “Here we are all family”. Translation by first author.

13. En Socio Vivienda podrán aumentar 1 piso. (2015, September 19). El Telégrafo, Guayaquil.

14. www.designinginclusion.wordpress.com