Email: November 12.2005

Renu,

Thank you for your thoughts.

Central to this work I am attempting -- what all the projects on the website and in the book share -- is the presence of a person -- not a "designer" or a "planner" or an "architect" -- at the center of the activity.  By that I mean, while each of us is seeking larger changes for many people, we're working with one person, then another person, then another person, then another person.

It is, as Nihal says, about their processes and their knowledge, and our asking "What can we learn from their processes?"  "How can we engage in their processes?"  I might ask: "Does what I know about architecture have any bearing in the lives of most people in the world?"

Your work is very much like this to me: one woman is identified as a local community leader, maybe a few women are so identified.  Then they are given some training.  They draw on the pavement with chalk, and ask other individuals: Who lives in your house?  How many children are there?  What sort of work is done by the man and woman?  (At least I think these are the sorts of basic questions that are asked.)  This is recorded and entered in data bases used by the government.

Through your work, you give legitimacy to each person in the sense that they "exist" in a way they didn't before.

Just to type this inspires me, to think of these small actions in a country of one billion people, in a city with six million squatters, the placing of a piece of a stick in a square drawn with chalk on the sidewalk, and to realize that this gesture, along with a few others that follow it, will cause someone to "be" . . .  well, this is everything to the work I am attempting, the website we are organizing, and the book we are planning.  (When I say "we," I'm referring to myself and my assistant, Kurt West.)
I hope that helps.

Yes, I appreciate what you say about not being an architect or a planner.  I very much like this about your work and you . . . that we can not, that you can not be so easily categorized, that there is more to this approach and to who you are.

And yes, I think that to some extent this is about participatory processes.  However, in almost every participatory process I've seen or know of (including many sucn endeavors at Ball State), still, the designer is at the center and the people are merely some sort of participating audience, waiting for the master to create the masterwork, waiting to give their applause.  So even here, I see you inverting the participatory process, empowering the individuals of the settlements, placing them at the center of your process, causing it to become their process as well.

You will see on the website, we are reaching out to others.  A photographer in the U.S. (Harvey Finkle) and film makers in Argentina will be included, and I am trying to reach into other fields and pursuits and approaches as well.  Nihal certainly will contribute something . . . but we don't know what . . . possibly something about how our work in south Asia breaks out of many of the departmental and professional boundaries that so confine and limit our efforts today.

In point, on the opening page where the contributors are listed, I have purposely not categorized people by their jobs, but instead provided some factual insight into the condition in which they are working.  It might be that we will change the subtitle and remove "architects."

As Nihal and I often say: the sorts of problems we are engaging should not be approached with the ideas and approaches that have been used in the past.  If anything, such ideas and approaches have gotten us into the situations we find ourselves in.

In the overwhelming conditions so many find themselves in, I am arguing that a very good approach is to move one person and one small project at a time . . . one squatter neighborhood that most authorities ignore (except during elections), one strong woman, one chalk drawing, one stick, one pebble at a time.

Your work, I understand, is not about building space.  This is very good.  I am an architect not really interested in building space.
Of course, I speak from a very distant place, but I do not think one building or structure should be torn down in India -- housing is needed, any structure is a beginning.  What is needed is a better understanding of the people and living conditions and potentials of the squatter communities: their lives, aspirations, families, skills, etc.

This is what you do.  This is what I am interested in.

Do you know the new book "Shadow Cities."  You might look for it.  The author, Robert Neuwirth lived in slums in Nairobi, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, and Istanbul for two months each.  Here is something he writes:

" The overwhelming majority of the world's one billion squatters are simply people who came to the city, needed a place to live that they and their families could afford, and, not being able to find it on the private market, built it for themselves on land that wasn't theirs.  For them, squatting is a family value.

" These squatters mix more concrete than any developer.  They lay more brick than any government.  They have created a huge hidden economy--an unofficial system of squatter landlords and squatter tenants, squatter merchants and squatter consumers, squatter builders and squatter laborers, squatter brokers and squatter investors, squatter teachers and squatter schoolkids, squatter beggars and squatter millionaires.  Squatters are the largest builders of housing in the world--and they are creating the cities of tomorrow."

I hope this helps.  And I very much look forward to your participation in this endeavor.

Let me know if I explain anything else.

As soon as we receive your biographical statement, we'll post it on the website.  And if you want (and have time) we certainly will post an abstract related to the contribution you will make to the book itself.

Thanks Renu.  It's great to be talking with you.
Wes

Related pages
_contributor: khosla
_introduction