How Open-Source Architecture can Empower
Social Change in areas of Economic Adversity.
AbstrAct
This essay addresses the systemic issue of informal dwellings in substandard conditions, with particular reference to Cape Town’s Langa Township. The essay initially explores the reasons as to why the issue has occurred. Primarily, the suggestion is argued that many architects use architecture to create selfpromoting material assertions on their communities and this is followed by the sentiment that architecture today is typically the designing of buildings for the richest 1% of the world’s population. The need for an organised whole-city footprint is addressed in order to relieve difficulty with participatory design on a large scale is discussed, with reference to failed examples from the past. Then, reference is made to the apparent impossibility in finding architects who are both experienced and willing to work for the social betterment of the other 99%. The empowerment of the anonymous majority is encouraged with regard to resolving the housing issue. Open-source software is suggested as the medium through which to do so, affording the opportunity for new technologies to regulate the layout of the society and accommodate any later expansion, while giving the inhabitants ultimate levels of participatory design.
IntroductIon
More than half of the global population is living in abject poverty, ‘surviving’ on less than $2.50 per day.1 This equates to more than three billion people worldwide in the lowest category of financial hardship, and a subsequent scarcity of essential utilities that left 1.2 billion people without any electricity in their dwelling in 2013.2 This essay will focus principally on South Africa, and specifically the Langa Township, as it is a prime example of the socioeconomic conditions that are so interwoven with deficient housing standards. The booming tourism trade in the townships of Soweto, the favelas of Rio and the slums of Dharavi often bring a superficially sufficient and prosperous feel that can detract tourists’ attention away from the truth of many other slums worldwide. The reality of such a dense accumulation of people who are already on, or below, the world poverty line into such condensed confines often results in particularly strained economies. For example, in 2011, one quarter of Cape Town’s Langa Township lived on no income, while only the top 1.5% met the country’s average monthly salary.3 This is reflected in the fact that just under
half of the local population did not live in formal dwellings in the same year and, of those that did, less than half had access to piped water within them.3 These statistics exhibit the relationship between abject poverty and insufficient housing, and how there is a direct correlation between these two systemic issues. It is within these poverty ‘hot-spots’ that the association becomes more apparent, and I believe that the key to resolving the one issue is in the resolution of the other.
Architecture is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as ‘the art or practice of designing and constructing buildings.’4 This definition puts a heavy emphasis on the artistry of the new, and gives no recognition to the renovation or re-purposing of buildings that can often lead to the most innovative design solutions. In his TED Prize acceptance speech, architect Cameron Sinclair said that he felt like the ‘black sheep in the family’ as an architect who was interested in socially responsible design.5 In his view, ‘many architects seemed to think that when you design, you design a [self-proclaiming] jewel.’5 Rather, Sinclair proposed that ‘you either improve or you create a detriment to the community in which you are designing.’5 Sinclair’s discomfort is a cry out against both upcoming and established architects who see a building project as simply a material equivalent to their own tag line. Few modern architects can be seen to be working graciously and anonymously for the betterment of the society in which they are working.
Unfortunately, the existing problem is in Sinclair’s solidarity, for which he was recognised with the TED Prize in 2006. In a connected, crowd-sourced world, architecture is one of few professions that has staunchly held on to its stuccoed laurels. As the likes of ‘Etsy.com’ allow everyday designers to become global entrepreneurs, architecture remains strictly within the realm of the ‘Starchitects’. WikiHouse co-founder Alastair Parvin agreed with Sinclair by reluctantly defining what ‘we call architecture today [as] … the business of designing for about the richest one percent of the world’s population.’6 And there has always been this disproportionate agglomeration of money, utilities and services between the very rich and the very poor: in 2011 in South Africa, the richest 10% of the population held 51.26% of the national income.7
In terms of 21st century architecture, dominated by names like Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Bjarke Ingels, the challenge for the next generation of architects is to empower the anonymous so that architecture can be redefined from designing for the one percent, to designing for the one hundred percent. Cameron Sinclair’s TED talk of the same year highlighted statistics that showed the extent of the global housing issue. Speaking in 2006 he anticipated that ‘in 20 years, one in three people will live in an unplanned settlement or refugee
camp.’5 Amidst today’s turmoil of the Syrian refugee crisis, this statistic is much easier to comprehend. Indeed, ten years earlier than Sinclair predicted and already one in two inhabitants of Langa live in unplanned settlements.3 The crucial issue with this is the potential for exponential growth. When Langa Township was first created in 1920, it was as local housing for workers on the nearby port.8 However the company, who was more concerned with their finances than the workers’ welfare, placed a higher priority in maximising occupancy than on the functionality of the houses. Soon there were four workers to a single sleeping space and, when their families travelled to live with them too, it left a huge housing problem. Eventually, as families expanded and could no longer live under the same inadequate roof, people settled on small, realistically uninhabitable, plots between houses. As the populations continued to expand, reiterations caused a sort of repetitive strain injury on the economy and the built environment. The result of these informal homes continually plugging the tiny gaps between other buildings is a densely packed labyrinthine maze that makes an ordered, efficient access to utilities greatly more problematic. Therefore, the concern for architects, and evidently urban planners too, goes beyond the design of the individual habitable units and, especially in densely populated areas of economic adversity, extends into the issue of how these individual units will collectively work together to create a more ordered, well-serviced and habitable environment.
So, why not send a world-leading yet servient architect, or indeed an urban planner, into these areas to facilitate a long-term regenerative masterplan? If the cause of the issue is informal and insufficient housing, and if by solving the housing problem the economy could see an upward trend, then why not utilise the supposed superiority of an architect? The difficulty with this approach is alluded to in Carlo Ratti’s book, ‘Open Source Architecture’. In Ratti’s chapter, ‘Why It Did Not Work’, he mentions the story of Christopher Alexander’s ‘Oregon Experiment’. In the latter half of the 20th century, the University of Oregon took heavy criticism from its politically active students over some of the campus infrastructure. The students, who were campaigning for things as varied as human rights in Nepal and revisions of the United States’ military draft, took displeasure in a few ‘World War II era Brutalist housing blocks’ that they saw as ‘concrete entrenchment[s] of archaic … social views’.9 There was a loud outcry for change that the University board heard and asked Alexander to realise. Christopher Alexander, as a mathematician-turned-architect, implemented an idiosyncratic approach to his task that was starkly different to the professional norm. Rather than simply meeting with the University board to generate a distinct masterplan for the redesign, Alexander used his mathematical
background to construct a non-specialist language as part of a new design methodology that would, theoretically, reach the entire student body and ensure radically increased user participation.
Ratti describes his system, dubbed ‘pattern language’, as one that ‘would allow decisions to be made continuously by the entire group, rather than [being] guided by a strict, original, and singular masterplan.’9 A comprehensive understanding of the intricacies of Alexander’s ‘pattern language’ is not necessary for the analogy to work; the essence of what Alexander was doing was creating a simple user-interface that would allow greatly more people to simultaneously influence the design of their built environment. The downfall of Alexander’s project, and the limitations with its respect to solving the housing problem in economically underdeveloped areas, was in its dependence on at least some shared principles amongst its many collaborators. In Alexander’s own words, ‘nothing would be worse than an environment in which each square foot was designed according to entirely different principles.’ The difficulty Alexander encountered flowed from an unexpected level of student apathy. Not enough students were using his ‘pattern language’, or too many were using it to bring about conflicting ideas, and soon Alexander was back to square one calling on small groups to come to conclusions about explicit issues. The difficulty in empowering the masses on such a large scale was in simultaneously ensuring campus-wide consent on the specifics of the project. It soon became apparent that conclusions could only be reached in smaller, concentrated assemblies and, as much as Alexander had fought to avoid this, it resulted in the great majority of stakeholders never getting their say in crucial decisions. Alexander’s new methodology had failed and the participatory system became irrelevant; all that remained was a sense of pseudo-participation that fuelled theoretical debates within architecture circles for years afterwards.
‘Architecture and Participation’ concluded that ‘participation, or rather pseudo-participation, is being used as a socially acceptable shield behind which the authors can develop their technically-determined ideologies.’10 Whilst Alexander’s eventual retention of almost complete authority was unintentional and lacked the manipulative edge suggested by the authors of this study, his story is a perfect example of how projects eager for mass participation can often result in the antithesis of what they set out to achieve. In the context of South Africa’s amalgamation of multi-lingual cultures, the potential for similar consequences becomes apparent. South Africa speaks eleven officially recognised languages and is home to a myriad of cultural subgroups that culminate in one of the most ethnically, culturally, and spiritually diverse nations in the world. But it is not just South Africa where this is apparent: the ‘Calais Jungle’ boasts
over ten different nationalities within its precincts.11 Tasking a sole architect to either design a masterplan that is in keeping with so many differing cultures, or to create a system whereby each culture could have an input in the design, would be a nigh-on impossible task. The similarity in scenario to the ‘Oregon Experiment’ would see any such attempt end in a comparable ‘political and administrative nightmare.’9
How, then, can Alexander’s ‘pattern language’ be improved to solve the issue of client-involved design in large-scale projects? Following the ‘Oregon Experiment’, towards the turn of the 21st century, architects at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were making advancements in computer technologies that saw the boundaries ‘being blurred between computer science and architecture.’9 Advocates of the new technology saw a potential within this coalition that could result in an electronic, ‘non-chaotic system with categorically guaranteed user input for the maximum efficiency of userderived output.’9 In essence, what they were creating was a digitised version of Alexander’s prototype.
However, all their proposal did was to over-complicate matters. The reality that the majority of users would have no understanding of computer science meant that, as the field progressed, the increasingly specialised terminology rendered the process irrelevant to all but the designer. Linus Torvalds, pioneer of the open-source software ‘Linux’, is famous amongst other things for the quote, ‘Be lazy like a fox.’ It is this inventive efficiency that Cameron Sinclair was trying to promote and that the convoluted systems at the MIT completely bypassed. As Sinclair encouraged earlier, design should always be simple: trying to reinvent the wheel every time there is a complication never results in the most effective solution.
A simplified solution for a global, contemporary issue seems counter-intuitive: if it were so simple, it surely would have been resolved already. The problem facing areas such as Langa is both finding architects willing to turn from the one percent to the one hundred percent, while also finding those able to cohesively unite the varied ‘principles’ of each sub-culture within a community. The difficulty is in finding a professional who can do both: those who have turned their attention to those in need have met difficulty proposing a unified plan (like Alexander); and the big architectural names with the experience and capability to enact change are often too busy building upwards in modern metropolises to notice the needs of the other 99%.
This seems to present a Catch-22: that to fix the systemic housing issue an architect with experience and expertise is arguably necessary; but architects with these qualities are the architects already designing exclusively for the world’s richest in the capital cities of the world. The answer to who can fix this dilemma appears to be no one. Or, rather, all of us. The catch has been in the presumption that a design problem or a housing issue must be solely left to the realm of trained architects. The monopoly architects have held over constructional design in the modern era is unparalleled in almost all other professions. In a world where, with access to Wi-Fi and at no personal cost, anyone can become online language tutors, business entrepreneurs and much more, relatively few have made that jump into the world of architecture. It is still assumed by modern society that in order to tackle these housing issues, you must receive seven years of an architectural education and your final qualification before you are eligible to make your mark.
Therefore, the simplicity required to fix this problem comes from eradicating this presupposition. Once the anonymous majority are given the tools to reinvent their environment, suddenly the Catch-22 is solved: by giving the power directly into the hands of the local inhabitants, you are instantaneously empowering ‘architects’ who are heavily invested in the welfare of those in need and who have the best working assumption of how the individual sub-cultures will fit together into a harmonious community.
This was the seed of thought that grew into WikiHouse. Co-founder Alastair Parvin saw a world where architecture resided solely within the ‘monetary economy [with] … all the infrastructure and all the tools.’6 To combat this he formed WikiHouse, an open-source construction system free to the public. Parvin’s project marked where open-source software met open-source hardware. Through WikiHouse, anyone with an internet connection could access its software and design or replicate blueprints for a building that would be sent to a CNC cutter anywhere in the world; a kind of remotely-operated, house-sized jigsaw cutter. The CNC machine then cuts the outline of the ‘architect’s’ design out of sheet wood, leaving a flat-packed house that is assembled in under a day by two unskilled workers, which truly allows anyone to benefit from its potential.
After all, Parvin was of the view that ‘design shares a category with sex and care of the elderly – mostly it’s done by amateurs.’6 This, then, has the capability of radically improving situations in cramped, congested areas such as Langa: there are evident environmental benefits in using entirely renewable resources (even the pegs are made out of wood); the cost is negligible even in comparison with the price of emergency modular housing; and employment opportunities could arise out of the construction of the homes.
However, the model is in need of a few alterations. In opening up the possibility of such limitless design opportunities, there is still the issue of creating just such an environment that Cristopher Alexander advised against. To circumvent this end, a uniform chassis of a building could both provide a level of inter-cultural similitude, and also act as the basis for several other design advances.
The proposed open-source software would provide a sort of exoskeleton of a building onto which the architect-cum-resident would add their own alterations. This would allow an industry-set framework that could house solar panels, a rooftop vegetable patch, or a rainwater collection system, for example. Mark Kushner’s book, ‘The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings’ explores some of these proposals. In particular he cites the ‘Innovation Hub’, a building in south eastern Botswana whose roof uses a series of innovative techniques that help fight climate change and could easily be added ‘as standard’ to the kernel of an open-sourced house.12
The greatest advantage to standardising the shell of each building would be in assimilating the HiveHaus project. Barry Jackson created a prototype for HiveHaus in 2013, which was a singular pod on a hexagonal floor plan. The pods were sold as holiday homes with one crucial marketing point: they were dynamically connect-able. Each of the hexagonal pods could fit to another in any desired arrangement. Translating this woven and expandable layout into the design of Township housing could eradicate the congested, tangled footprint of the area and leave an ordered, regular layout of houses that could be easily extended if family sizes increased.
The final alteration to Parvin’s WikiHouse project would be in creating a central community outreach centre that would serve as the hub of both the CNC factory and the computer design outposts. This would provide a central focus point within the community that would encourage inhabitants to convene and increase participation in the project. The centre would amalgamate the community’s many societies under one scheme and would provide a shared area where other important facilities (read: HIV awareness centres) could be accessed. Logging of construction and community expansion could easily be monitored and it would provide a perfect platform for the unemployed to enrol as either builders or IT consultants within the design labs.
Aside from the environmental and social advantages of the building’s exoskeleton, the limitless opportunities of the resident-designed dwelling would bring a greater sense of identity to the area and, hopefully, pride to the homeowner. Dutch artist Jeroen Koolhaas transformed a run-down Rio favela simply by painting the buildings in vibrant and attractive colour schemes.
The area was totally renovated into an upbeat social space that attracted ‘positive attention and economic impulses.’12 The aim of this essay was to present an equally simple open-sourced method to guarantee similar results in one of the most economically adverse areas of South Africa. Allowing local inhabitants to take an environmentally-friendly, habitable frame and create their own iconic dwelling around it serves as a cheap guarantor of total user participation that would safeguard the unique qualities of individual cultures.
conclusIon
In conclusion, as architecture and anthropology blend, the empowerment of the anonymous individual would encourage society to recognise socially responsible design as a global necessity that can, and should, be facilitated by the entire population, not just professionals.
EndnotEs
1 Statistic Brain. 24 October 2015, http://www.statisticbrain.com/world-povertystatistics. Accessed 22 September 2016.
2 The Washington Post. 29 May 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news / wonk/wp/2013/05/29/heres-why-1-2-billion-people-still-dont-have-access-toelectricity/. Accessed 23 September2016.
3 Statistics South Africa, City of Cape Town – 2011 Census Suburb Langa, July 2013, https://www.capetown.gov.za/en/stats/2011CensusSuburbs/2011_Census_CT_ Suburb_Langa_Profile.pdf Accessed 23 September 2016.
4 English Oxford Living Dictionaries, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ architecture. Accessed 24 September 2016.
5 Sinclair, C. (2006, July) My Wish: A Call for Open-source Architecture.
6 Parvin, A. (2013, May). Architecture for the People by the People.
7 The World Bank. 2011, http://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty?locations=ZA. Accessed 23 September 2016.
8 The Culture-ist. 6 September 2013, http://www.thecultureist.com/2013/09/06/ cape-town-langa-township-south-africa/. Accessed 25 September 2016.
9 Ratti, C. Open Source Architecture. Thames & Hudson, 2015.
10 Jones, P. et al. Architecture and Participation. Routledge, 2005.
11 ITV News. 5 October 2015, http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2015-10-05/factfile-the-jungle/. Accessed 25 September 2016.
12 Kushner, M. The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings. Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015.