Présentation de l'éditeur :
Formulated in 1967, the PREVI Experimental Housing Project in Lima is
one of the most ambitious experiments in social housing ever built, not
only for the number of variables proposed but also because it brought
together, for the first time, such outstanding figures on the
architectural scene of the time as Aldo van Eyck, Charles Correa, James
Stirling, Christopher Alexander, Atelier 5, Fumihiko Maki, Candilis,
Josic and Woods, among others.
With their proposals for low-density,
progressive housing they jointly debated various ways of creating the
city in a context of limited resources and urgent urbanisation.
A study of PREVI after more than three decades since its formulation
seeks not only to salvage the original construction along the lines of
an 'archaeological' survey, which reclaims the authorial oeuvre hidden
behind the constant interventions on the part of its occupants, but
aims to call into question the idea of housing as a habitational
solution, the role of the architect in the process and the materials of
the design as scarce resources.
To salvage the idea of neighbouring
units, the rapport between public and communal space, the values and
possibilities of a more open city planning and the different family
structures against the actual standardisation of the user.
EquipoArquitectura
(EqA) is a team founded in 2003 by the Chileans Fernando
García-Huidobro and Nicolás Tugas, and the Peruvian Diego Torres
Torriti, all of them graduate architects of the Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Chile. This book is the outcome of the work that first
brought them together. Since then, they have worked in publicising the
PREVI research as well as in private project design, investigation and
teaching.
Fernando García-Huidobro and Diego Torres Torriti form part of the
ELEMENTAL team, a 'doing tank' devoted to the developing of projects of
social interest and public impact in Chile: social housing, urban
equipment, state schools and other urban projects. Nicolás Tugas
currently works at CCRS arquitectes, a Barcelona office devoted to
different scales of urbanism.