by Tomeu Ramis
In 1965, the Peruvian Government and the United Nations invited British architect Peter Land to design a strategy for mass housing as an alternative to the massive informal settlements that were dramatically taking place in Lima during that period. In 1966, informal discussions began with the Peruvian Government about the PREVI (Proyecto experimental de vivienda, Experimental Housing Project), and its initial form consisted of four different pilot projects . For the first pilot project (PP1) Peter Land proposed the organization of an international competition to design 1,500 housing units on a deserted 40-hectare site north of Lima’s downtown. Thirteen international architects were invited to take part in the competition, and an open national competition was organized for architects in Peru to obtain the same number of competitors. The international and national sections were implemented simultaneously, and the PREVI competition for 26 selected competitors was announced in 1969.
The competition brief was based on a series of experimental principles:
1. A neighborhood and design based upon the high-density, low-rise concept, a module and model for future urban expansion.
2. A growing house concept , with integral courtyard.
3. Configurations of housing clusters within the neighborhood master plan.
4. An entirely human-scale pedestrian environment in the neighborhood.
5. Improved and new house-building methods with earthquake resistance.
6. An overall neighborhood landscape plan.
The jury met the same year in Lima and, having chosen the six winning projects (the international groups selected were Kikutake-Kurokawa-Maki, Herbert Ohl and Atelier 5), resolved to start working on the construction of the 26 proposals chosen for their very high quality and progressive design. Due to political and economic circumstances, instead of the 1,500 dwellings initially envisaged, the pilot scheme comprised 500 homes, with Peter Land's team drawing up a collage of 20 housing units per architect within a Master Plan defined by him. In a second phase, the best proposals were to develop 1,000 dwellings, but this phase was never implemented. Finally, 24 of the 26 proposals were successfully built. Two projects, by Herbert Ohl from Germany and Takahashi from Peru, were not built due to their technical and material complexities.
The PREVI was designed as a platform for expansion and the gradual adaptation to changing family needs over time. Its evolution and subsequent changes were essentially anticipated in the original design, but 40 years after its construction, the inhabitants have radically transformed the dwellings in programmatic and formal terms. The transformation of the PREVI is the reflection of a dynamic, consolidated, cohesive neighbourhood that is highly relevant today, in the context of the current crisis.
Charles Correa (India)
Correa said that the project grew from the following four objectives:
(1) Highest possible density commensurate with
(2) Individual landownership;
(3) Minimum road and servicing cost;
(4) Pedestrian /vehicle separation.
An arrangement of narrow row houses with access at both ends provided the logical answer both to vehicle segregation and minimization of service runs with porches and backyards acting as transition areas between pedestrian and car access and the interior of the houses along diagonal road and footpath routes so as to exploit the prevailing wind for ventilation purposes – aided by airscoopes over the central area of each house – and to achieve optimum orientation with respect to sunlight. Tree planting along pedestrian and service roadways can be employed to modulate sunlight and natural ventilation as well as traffic noise from the central thoroughfare.
The service structure of schools, shops, and church and recreation areas is strung out in a disjointed diagonal moving in the opposite direction to the footpaths and roads. They take the form of the covered shaded areas set in well ventilated clearings and can be easily reached on foot as they can be by vehicle. The shops can be serviced from cul-de-sac service roads. From individual porches one can walk along pedestrian ways until these join the central spine of patios culminating in the central church and shopping area.
There is a single underpass linking both halves of the site across the central area.
The houses themselves are designed in such a way that they can either be built by their future occupants, with the assistance of the authorities as regards prefabricated elements, subsidies, skilled labour etc.: or they can be completed by the authorities themselves and sold to individual families. The former option would allow greater flexibility and, bearing in mind the efforts have been made to minimize the number of constraints that would be necessary under the circumstances.
Narrow plots resulting in narrow frontages, in architects mind ensured that the façade to be ‘controlled’ was very small and set well back into the porch.
The short span housing offered considerable structural flexibility which could be exploited by the occupants. Further flexibility was offered by building the first stage development to be on ground floor, incorporating a front porch, living/dining area, bedroom, central patio, bathroom, kitchen and a small service patio at the rear. This was considered sufficient for a young family with one or two children. The future stages could add first floor bedrooms and bathroom.
Correa’s ‘interlaced’ scheme generated by the saw-tooth configuration of the anti- seismic outer wall is orientated along the axis that is most conducive to natural ventilation. The major changes have been made on the scale of the city block. Individual owners have now aligned their units along the street front.
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“Without malleability you can not have cultural expression-
all you can get is a top-down notion of how people should live” C.C.
