Role of the Architect in Development

Program Sketches

My search for a program is narrowing down, as might have been evident in my rant on the public market of Bage. The idea of a workers villa, or co-op, still is on the top of the priorities. The development of the village patterns around a raison d'etre is what I must develop more in depth.

Precedents #3

Bing Thom Architects
Central City, Surrey, BC
http://www.bingthomarchitects.com/




Frank Gehry
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2008/02/serpentine_gallery_pavilion_20_9.html
http://photodelusions.wordpress.com/category/out-and-about/london/serpentine-gallery/serpentine-pavilion-2008/

The Pentagon's New Map

In my search for world maps and the global situation of development, I came about Thomas P.M. Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map. In his web site http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/, he talks about the risks of Brazil and Argentina:

3) BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA Both on the bubble between the Gap and the Functioning Core. Both played the globalization game to hilt in nineties and both feel abused now. The danger of falling off the wagon and going self-destructively leftist or rightist is very real. • No military threats to speak of, except against their own democracies (the return of the generals). • South American alliance MERCOSUR tries to carve out its own reality while Washington pushes Free Trade of Americas, but we may have to settle for agreements with Chile or for pulling only Chile into bigger NAFTA. Will Brazil and Argentina force themselves to be left out and then resent it? • Amazon a large ungovernable area for Brazil, plus all that environmental damage continues to pile up. Will the world eventually care enough to step in?

Here is his map (by William McNulty), that delineates the "functioning core" and "non-integrated gap" zones of the world.



In reference to the Amazon, he fact that a country cannot manage its own territory is insulting, regardless of the fact that the administration of the Amazon really is out of control. The way he presents it is reminiscent of the fiasco from about seven years ago when a textbook mapped the Amazon as an international zone. Help is of course welcome, but in non military or territorial means.

The first question referring to the Mercosul, FTA, and NAFTA is valid. South America is divided into two drifting pieces, the leftist underdeveloped northwest and the more developed south. Columbia is an exception in the northwest, so much so that it has negociated with NAFTA more than any other country in South America. Peru is perhaps the country I've seen the most micro-investment headway.

Taking the "non-intergrated gap" map from Barnett's book and coupling it with general regions of high productivity in the continent, the Pampas is evidently the shaft of land that seems to be linking the two "functioning cores" of South America. Considering the richness of the location of the Fronteira (Brazil-Uruguay border region), it is impossible to assume that no development will occur in this region, and it is obviously lacking proper administration since it is sitting between the richest zones of the continent.

Follow-up on "What I can learn from Wal-Mart..."

On September 23, 2008, I posted "What I Can Learn from Wal-Mart, Carrefour, and other giants", commenting on the financial potential of the lower class consumption power and the shift in target groups for business in a world becoming increasingly driven by all classes and the developing world.
In the offset of the downward spiral of the global recession of this year, I postulated that companies like Wal-Mart and Carrefour are strategically organized to thrive in hard times because of their target market.

On November 13, 2008, my postulation was reinforced by Wal-Mart's third quarter earnings, with the company profits rising 10% while other companies sank. Here is an article from the AP on the matter.

"Wal-Mart's quarterly profit rises 10 percent"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27696162/

The Tragic Story of the Public Market of Bagé

In searching for a program, I looked into the historic patterns of development in Latin America, particularly in the Pampas of Rio Grande do Sul.
The Laws of the Indies established a skeleton for town development in Spanish colonized areas from the 16th to 18th century. Its most notable point was a regular block grid grown from a central open space enclosed by a church, a governmental building, and a public market in most complete cases. The nuclear nature of the cities' souls in these regions are still very evident today and provide many cities with beautiful characteristic and vital spaces.
In the case of Bagé, I am personally affected by the history of these spaces. The city developed around two main public squares - the colonial square flanked by the onion-domed cathedral, and the newer square originally flanked by the public market built in 1862 (as pictured below). My grandfather moved from Brummana, Lebanon, to Bagé in 1935 and opened a textile shop in one of the doors of the public market. Eventually he moved his store to the north side of the square out of the market. In 1953, the city, under Mayor Carlos Kluwe, decided to demolish the market citing the need for the city to grow and the lack of funds for the municipal government. In the place of the market were built a hotel and an office building, while a third building was never fully finished, rebar and all still exposed. The last vestige of the market is the street corner clock, pitifully dominated by a 1960s hotel building.

Mercado Publico de Bagé, circa 1948








Site of the Mercado Publico, 2007

Patterns of the Pampas

In looking through aerials of the Pampas and examining how the cities meet the landscape meet agriculture, I began to find some mesmerizing patterns of land use. Here are a few frames at the same scales:



And here is a frame of the area that I am interest in working in. The land is far less touched, but also far less dynamic.



Here are four different situations, at equal scales, of the city edge meeting the rural landscape

Get to Know a State

The diagram below generally maps out the land uses and reasons for being of the different regions of the southern half of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The dark black border is the boundary between Uruguay and Brazil.




Below is a scale comparison of the state of Rio Grande do Sul overlaid on the Bos-Wash megalopolis. The state is large enough to capture Richmond to New York City to Pittsburg to Buffalo and everything in between.




Here is another scale comparison encompassing most of the major Italian cities.

Targets of Development

This is a set of diagrams translated from Victor Pelli's book Habitar, Participar, Pertenecer. They compare two strategies in creating targets for development in socioeconomic levels, primarily in developing countries. I am interested in developing the second proposal as an alternative to the singular target convention of the first diagram.


The incremental approach is more adapt to my architectural and tectonic goals of my thesis. The possibility of individuals gradually and independently improving their living conditions is the ultimate target for my research.

Nota para arquitectos

...si bien puede ser discutible si es o no es Arquitectura lo que se construye y lo que se hace para resolver la pobreza habitacional, en la forma en que se plantea el problema en nuestros paises, de lo que no hay dudas es que en este trabajo hacen falta arquitectos.

La discusion sobre si el producto es o no es Arquitectura puede quedar para momentos mas distendidos, mientras se sigue trabajando.


[...it may very well be debatable if Architecture is or is not what is built and what is done to resolve habitational poverty, in the form that the problem is planted in our countries, in which there is doubtlessly a lack of arquitects.

The discussion as to whether the product is Architecture or not can fall to more prolonged times, meanwhile, the work continues.]

Victor Pelli, 1990