Iwan Baan

OBJETIVO

SO - IL was tasked to work with Imuvi Development and the City of León, firstly to rethink housing models in the city, and secondly to develop a prototype structure for vertical housing.

The prototype needed to be highly cost-effective and relatively low-tech so as to enable local workforce involvement in construction. Given that single-family home ownership had been historically preferred by tenants and developers, the prototype also needed to encourage tenants to experience vertical dwellings as appealing as their freestanding single-family counterparts.

Beyond prototyping, the directive was to create a project whose impact would go beyond housing for 56 families. On a larger scale, the project would support the local government’s desire to express a change in direction for urban developments, building toward a denser and more integrated city.

CONTEXTO

At the turn of the millennium, Mexico's federal government mounted a massive campaign against crowded and inadequate housing to raise the living standards of its working-class families. Despite occasional success, still millions of Mexicans are living in substandard housing. Many remote suburban neighborhoods constructed as part of the campaign have deteriorated due to a lack of services and access, while other developments have been abandoned entirely.

Traditional notions of homeownership currently lock new developments into becoming acres of identical free-standing homes in remote areas far from the economic center. Extensive municipal utility expansion and expensive transportation programs have led to a decline in the region’s economy, and a loss of critical density within León.

The call for a more sustainable solution to low-income housing has never been more urgent. In 2016, SO – IL began work with IMUVI in the populous city of León in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato to develop a housing program that could address issues of cost, quality, and loss of critical urban density.