Teddy Cruz is an architect focused on using neighbourhoods bordering North and South America as urban laboratories for new forms of developments. InfoSite is a physical manifestation of one of these experiments.
InfoSite is about recycling structures in San Diego by repurposing them in Tijuana, Mexico for housing. In an interview with ICON Magazine, Cruz said, “Waste goes south.” [2] With this in mind, Cruz creates life on either side of the border. A house is to be inhabited for three months in downtown San Diego before being transported to a neighbourhood in Tijuana. Once moved to Tijuana, the house’s skeleton will remain the same but its use and function will become entirely altered by its new residents and context.
Cruz’s project challenges the conventional method of urban development. InfoSite proposes nomadic developments to replace this. This solution makes use of existing structures - a tactic that could be implemented internationally. Take unused or inadequately used housing in the developed and affluent world to provide much-needed housing in densely populated, often poor areas.
The project is not just a comment on the repurposing of structures but also addresses issues of zoning and land use. How does the issue of zoning come into play when faced with subsistent urbanism? Is there a need for designated land use when the major concern at stake is survival?
However, do nomadic developments diminish the culture of the receiving people? Does the moved building impose itself on its new inhabitants and carry with it only the way of life previously living? The transfer of buildings from one cultural niche to another does not imply respect of these separate cultures.
Perhaps the only way to survive in subsistent urbanism is by rethinking how to live. It is no longer about aesthetics and how to adapt technology to those desires. Rather than designing for a specific client living in a specific scenario, build frameworks for developments that can be adapted as they are moved. As Cruz stated again in the interview with ICON Magazine, housing should be considered “not as units thrown on the landscape, but strategically and politically about density and social structure.” [3]
Footnotes:
1. Teddy Cruz, "World Architects: estudio Teddy Cruz Details,"
http://www.world-architects.com/index.php?seite=ca_project_details_us&system_id=18115&profile_sprache=us (accessed November 3, 2009.)
2. Beatrice Galilee, "Estudio Teddy Cruz," ICON Magazine, November 2008,
http://www.iconeye.com/index.php?view=article&catid=421&id=3835&option=com_content (accessed November 3, 2009.)
3. Ibid.
Information Sources:
Cruz, Teddy. "World Architects: estudio Teddy Cruz Details."
http://www.world-architects.com/index.php?seite=ca_project_details_us&system_id=18115&profile_sprache=us (accessed November 3, 2009.)
Galilee, Beatrice. "Teddy Cruz." ICON Magazine. October 2008.
http://www.iconeye.com/index.php?view=article&catid=420&id=3756&option=com_content (accessed November 3, 2009.)
Galilee, Beatrice. "Estudio Teddy Cruz." ICON Magazine. November 2008.
http://www.iconeye.com/index.php?view=article&catid=421&id=3835&option=com_content (accessed November 3, 2009.)
McKeough, Tim. "Shantytown, U.S.A." Good Magazine. January 4 2009.
http://www.good.is/post/shantytown-usa/ (accessed November 3, 2009.)
Ouroussoff, Nicolai. "Shantytowns as a New Suburban Ideal." The New York Times. March 12, 2006.
http://51.calpoly.edu/news-events/documents/news0506-documents/Shantytowns.pdf (accessed 3 November 2009.)
This seems like a good idea on the surface but I have been doing research into the types of shelters currently being designed and used in developing worlds and the people there are very interested in keeping their culture alive. The idea of transporting unused houses from the developed world to the developing -aside from being uneconomical- seems rather patronizing. There are lots of people working in those countries, with the people helping them to build sustainably, while respecting their traditions. For example in Bangladesh it is a deep rooted tradition to place the toilet and the kitchen in separate structures altogether; a convention not respected by North American and European building.
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