Competition entry in 1976 for a major international architectural competition for a community housing project to stimulate a total reappraisal of housing for the poor and, in this particular instance, for the squatter settlement of Manila. The brief required a specific design to accommodate 500 families on a five hectare site of reclaimed land. Alongside this was a schematic proposal for the design of an entire new town with a population of 100,000.

1. The New Town
1. The New Town © MN Ashish Ganju
2. The community within its neighbourhood
2. The community within its neighbourhood © MN Ashish Ganju
3. The Barangay
3. The Barangay © MN Ashish Ganju
4. The Housing Units
4. The Housing Units © MN Ashish Ganju
5. Community Technology
5. Community Technology © MN Ashish Ganju

The International Architectural Foundation has, from the beginning of its planning for the design competition, had five main goals:

Goal 1. “Alert architects and planners to the gravity of the accelerating urban crisis in developing countries.” A few professionals have of course, long been deeply involved in the problems of human settlements. But it is our hope that the earlier writing in RECORD - and most especially this issue - has brought the desperate gravity of the problems if urban slums around the world to the attention of most architects and planners.

Goal 2. “Increase the fund of talent and expertise available for planning human habitations.” Surely that is a direct result of the competition. As noted earlier, over 2500 architects In 68 countries registered for the competition; and the 476 entrants from 46 countries who submitted work clearly made an enormous commitment of time and effort in increasing their personal “fund of talent and expertise”. While there was no space in this issue to publish much of this work beyond the permitted designs, other work will be shown in ‘rchitecture d’Aujourd’hui and Nikkei Arhitecture; and the bulk of the work will be shown in a book on the competition planned by the IAF for publication early next year.

Goal 3. “Involve architects and planners in the design of a demonstration project in a major city of the developing world.” That is now the unique and massive responsibility of the competition winner, Ian Athfield, and his staff and consultants; working with General Tobias and other officials of the Philippine government, and with the residents of the Tondo Foreshore who clearly stand ready to make their contribution of self-help.

Goal 4. “Contribute to the success of HABITAT.” Over 2000 delegates from 140 countries - plus technicians and others from non-governmental organizations - will be gathered in Vancouver in May and June to formulate an international strategy to guide efforts in improving the conditions of the urban poor around the world. It is our hope that this issue, and the exhibit of the permeated designs sponsored by the IAF at the Vancouver Art Gallery, will make a modest contribution to that great and important meeting.

Goal 5. “Act as a catalyst for further contributions by individuals, institutions, organizations and governments to the solution of the problems of housing and the urban poor.” There are several early opportunities for world leaders in housing and international aid and lending to implement new ideas. The governors of the World Bank meet in October to receive recommendations from HABITAT and decide what action or revision of their important programs they might make perhaps including a greater role in the redevelopment of cities in the developing world (most of the Bank’s activity has been in rural areas). The Inter-American Development also might choose to implement recommendations of HABITAT-including those generated by the competition. And then there is the whole HABITAT. Individual government officials around the world might see new directions for their programs of human settlement in the concepts and design ideas generated by the competition.

At any rate, the IAF competition has clearly generated some important new proposals for self-help and a host of new and thoughtful and affordable and socially acceptable ways for governments to intervene constructively in the lives of the poor of their countries. And so-with the competition on which so many people labored so long behind us-we begin

-W.W.1

  • 1. Reproduced in Architectural Record, May 1976, pp 65

Robert S. McNamara, President, World Bank Group:
The following is an except from his September 1, 1975 address to the Board of Governors of the World Bank1

The deprivation suffered by the poor is nowhere more visible than in the matter of housing. Even the most hardened and unsentimental observer from the developed world is shocked by the squalid slums and ramshackle shanty towns that ring the periphery of every major city in the developing countries of the world.

But there is one thing worse than living in a slum or squatter settlement- and that is having one’s slum or settlement bull dozed away by a government which has no shelter of any sort whatever to offer in its place. When that happens- and it happens often- there remains only the payment itself, or some rocky hillside or parched plain, where the poor can once again begin to build out of packing crates and signboards and scraps of sheet metal and cardboard a tiny hovel in which to house their families.

Squatter settlements by definition-and by city ordinance-are illegal. Even the word squatter itself is vaguely obscene, as if somehow being penniless, landless, and homeless were deliberate sins against the canons of proper etiquette. But it is not squatters who are obscene it is the economic circumstances that make squatter settlements necessary that are obscene.

Though the dynamics of poverty in the cities differ substantially from those in the country side, the key to dealing with them both is fundamentally the same. What is required are policies and actions that will assist the poor to increase their productivity. Primarily, this calls for measures that will remove barriers so their earning opportunities and improve their access to public services such as transport, education, and health services. Realistic housing policies must be established and firmly implemented.

The fundamental consideration underlying such a program is the reassessment of the role of the cities in the development process. Urban poverty can be cured nowhere in the world unless cities are thought of as absorptive mechanisms for promoting productive employment for all those who need and seek it. In the past 25 years in the developing countries some 200 to 300 million individuals have benefited at least marginally by migration and since even at their unacceptably low levels of income they have been more productively employed in the cities than they would have been had they remained in the rural areas, the national economy itself has benefited in the long run.

This is not to make a case for wholesale migration from the rural areas. It is only to recognize that poverty will persist in the cities until governments determine to increase their capacity not simply to absorb the poor, but to promote their productivity by providing the employment opportunities, the infrastructure, and the services necessary for that purpose. We must identity policies and actions to bring this about.

On Human Settlements
Enrique Penalosa, Secretary-General HABITAT/United Nations Conference2

Unplanned urbanization is the typical form of urban growth in the Third World. It will probably increase; as will the proportion of self-built shelter. This does not make professional planners unnecessary. Quite the contrary, since they are able to understand the phenomenon in depth planners are already badly needed in the roles of interpreter and catalyst. Planners can explain the squatter problem and its real dimensions to the authorities, with a view to convincing them of the investment involved in these settlements of the lack of immediate housing alternatives for the squatters, and therefore of the catastrophic consequences of demolition.

Planning professionals can persuade the authorities to provide those services and facilities which are technically, financially, and administratively impossible for the squatters to furnish themselves without help.

Planner can also help the squatters in their fight for security of tenure in order to legalize the settlements and relieve the squatters of the anxiety of illegally.

Finally, the professionals can persuade the authorities that, even for squatter settlements, long-term plans are possible and that the governments concerned should organize relevant legal, administrative, financial and technical mechanisms instead of constantly being taken by surprise.

Squatter settlements are inseparably part of human settlements and they must be accepted as such. They should neither be looked down upon in regard to their standards, technical sufficiency, or lack of infrastructure; nor as regards their differences with the organized city. Conversely the ingenuity of the inhabitants need not be magnified nor their spontaneity exaggerated. The professional bodies must recognize and work with squatter settlements as they are,

It is in the improvement of the design and production of the elements and components of shelter that the professional bodies can contribute positively. This production must be geared to the economic capacity of the population both at the household and the national level. It is useless to introduce a technical solution outside the limits of family income or the traditions and aspirations of the country and its people.
  • 1. Reproduced in Architectural Record, May 1976, pp 63
  • 2. Reproduced in Architectural Record, May 1976, pp 64