Seminar History and Theory of Urban Design: Sites and Services

Abstract

‘Sites-and-services’ was an important housing paradigm that was mobilized in the context of development aid to provide cost-efficient housing for the global poor. Since these were essentially unfinished projects that relied on their future inhabitants to complete their dwellings, in this seminar we discuss what we can learn from the histories of such atypical housing projects.

Objective

By focusing on the history of ‘sites-and-services’ projects, this seminar aims to develop on the one hand to a historical understanding of urban design in the postcolonial context of development aid, and on the other a theoretical understanding of the centrality of the act of inhabitation to architecture and its history. Upon completion of the course, the students will have: (1) acquired a general knowledge of the role of architecture and urban planning in the historical context of development aid, the main actors involved, and strategies adopted; (2) acquired an in-depth knowledge on the specific housing paradigm of ‘sites-and-services’; (3) developed a critical attitude in engaging with the history of postcolonial urban design; (4) developed a theoretical understanding of the act of inhabitation as central to architecture and its history; (5) developed a reflective attitude on the modes of writing architectural history and the role of inhabitation in it; (6) strengthened their analytical skills by engaging in text- and project-based discussions, their collaborative skills in team-based project analyses, and their communicative skills in presenting the outcomes of their work to their peers.

Content

The City Lived: ‘Sites-and-Services’ In our seminar series ‘The City Lived’ we focus on the history of urban design with a particular emphasis on the lived experiences in the city. This semester’s seminar will focus on ‘sites-and-services’, which was an important housing paradigm that was mobilized in the context of development aid to provide cost-efficient housing for the global poor. This housing strategy consisted of providing ‘sites’ – plots of land to construct dwellings on – in combination with a set of ‘services’, ranging from infrastructural features such as sewerage and waste disposal, to market-based interventions that aimed to make cheap building material more easily accessible or financial loan schemes that offered inhabitants the means to invest in their homes. It often operated on a large scale and targeted thousands of households in a single project. As it was heavily endorsed by major actors such as the World Bank and the United Nations for several decades since the 1970s as a cost-efficient way to relieve a high number of people from their most basic housing needs whilst simultaneously offering authorities the means to direct the enormous growth of spontaneous settlements in the urban peripheries, these ‘sites-and-services’ schemes have left a major imprint on many cities in the Global South. Despite this impact, their histories are not that well documented. Since these were essentially unfinished projects that relied on their future inhabitants to complete their dwellings, in this seminar we not only intend to dig up the histories of such projects but also to discuss what we can learn from the histories of such atypical housing projects. Inhabitants have drastically expanded and transformed the initial minimal design to often unrecognizable degrees according to their needs and resources and many of these sites are now integrated into wider urban patterns. How do we write the history of ‘unfinished’ projects? How do we acknowledge the act of appropriation and inhabitation as integral part of such projects?

Resources