Cities do not always grow according to plan. In fact, in Mexico urban development is almost always informal. Architect Arturo Ortiz Struck studied the mechanisms of this informal development – and the Holcim Foundation supported his important work with a grant.
The municipality of Chimalhuacán is at the east of Mexico City. Most of its 500,000 residents live in informal neighborhoods and dwellings. Such a situation is typical for Mexico, where urban development is frequently decided and executed by newly arrived migrants. The mechanisms at work in this process are the subject of a long-term study by Mexican architect Arturo Ortiz Struck. In 2007 the Holcim Foundation gave the architect and his colleague Rozana Montiel a Ph.D. research grant for the project “Sustainability in poor areas: Chimalhuacán Informal squatter settlements in the context of the local and global discourses.” In previous years, Struck and Montiel had examined how informal settlements arise, what rules shape the development, what relationship networks become established, and how development is influenced and supported by large companies.
Theory and practice
Upon this theoretical basis Arturo Ortiz Struck organized workshops with newly arrived citizens. The topic: sustainable construction. The architect directed the attention of the participants to aspects such as natural lighting, natural ventilation, heating, and cooling. Following the workshops, 17 new houses were constructed by residents who applied their new knowledge with great success.
Ambitious future plans
Arturo Ortiz Struck insists on children being taught very clearly about sustainability at an early age – when the children become older, many drop out of school. An interdisciplinary team, still to be established, is supposed to elaborate a new national elementary education curriculum – so that in the future the ideas of sustainable construction can be increasingly brought into informal settlements too.
This update on the research grant to Arturo Ortiz Struck appeared in Foundations, the magazine of the Holcim Foundation. To read further articles in the magazine, please click on the link below: