Learning from Neza
Spontaneous Building in Mexico City as a Model
Authors:
students of Architecture of the Universität Stuttgart
- Beata Ceglarska, Polen
- Zofia Izenska, Polen
- Wu Jun, China
- Paulina Krol, Polen
- Lena Matzen, Deutschland
- Marc Nagel, Deutschland
- Johann Petersmann, Schweiz
- Martin Rösle, Deutschland
- Wie Xie, China
- Qin Zhang, China
present: Johann Petersmann
Project
What can we learn from the spontaneous building? Even though the conditions are poor, millions of people are subject to this type of housing. To discover the great potential of the self-building and its positive benefits, a very precise analysis is necessary. It is found that in this analysis, there are many variations of house typology and a compact building structure with possible expansion and flexible programs that provides a solution to the difficulties in which the impoverished people of the south metropolis are building. It demonstrates a very unique and timeless model addressing an urban fabric that is not related to a precise region or culture, but is a worldwide problem.
The project presented was created during an intensive workshop in Mexico-City in 2007. The workshop took place in the district of Neza, which use to be the largest slum of Latin America, in which now one and a half million people live.
The goal of our research was to understand the nature of the informal and self-made building method rather than its political or social aspects; our focuses being the system behind the appearance of uncontrolled expansion. After being identified, we were able to reinterpret the building substance in a new way.
CV
Johann Petersmann: I was born on the 6th of December 1981 in Geneva. My father and my mother both came from Germany and married in Switzerland in 1980. I grew up with my two sisters and my brother and we all speak French and German as a mother tongue. Since our youth, we kept a very intime relation to Germany and we used to visit our grand parents every summer in Frankfurt. My father used to travel a lot for his job and occasionally my brother and I had the opportunity to come with him to some far destinations such as India, North-Africa, Canada or the U.S.
We soon developed a great interest in other people’s way of living and that’s why I choose to study architecture, so I can learn more about other cultures. I began to study in 2002 in Germany, first at the T.U. Cottbus and then at the University of Stuttgart. I came back to Switzerland 2005 after my “1st diploma” and studied one year at the EPFL in Lausanne.
My interests in building in countries of the so called ”third world” made me take the decision 2007 to return to Stuttgart, and its at that time that I met Prof. Dr. E. Ribbeck. He gave me the chance to work on a project in Palestine in which his Institute of Urban Planning (SIAAL) is well implicated. It was for me the possibility to turn into practice what I had learned from the workshop in Mexico-City and during the project of “Learning from Neza” which I have the pleasure to present at the Bauhaus Award 2008.
