M P
MATERIAL
POLITICS
[Architecture Research Practice for]
Radical infrastructures and socio-spatial change
Adaptable, Expandible, Assisted Self-Build
Site
Monte Sinaí, Guayaquil, Ecuador
Main Materials
Bamboo, Cement blocks
Project Leader
Dr. Leandro Minuchin
Designers
Patrik Cronin
Aida Rodriguez-Vega
Tamara Yazigi
Ellie Shouer
Eira Capelán
Collaborators
Neighbours of Monte Sinaí
MIDUVI - Ministry of Housing
Hogar de Cristo - NGO
PROJECT SUMMARY
Sinaí Urbanizado y Adaptable [SUYA] is a joint project between Material Politics, the NGO Hogar de Cristo and the Ecuadorean Ministry of Housing. The project aims to develop typological and material solutions for the crafting and production of affordable, adaptable and expandable social housing units in the settlement of Monte Sinaí, on the North-Western peripheries of Guayaquil, Ecuador.
The objective was to develop a constructive system, assembled through revalued materials, with the aim to assist and empower the process of self-build in the settlement.
With the view of providing rapid and improved material and infrastructural solutions, the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, has sought to empower self-build initiatives. The aim is not only to use a standardized constructive system, but to include local organizations and cooperatives in the production process. Moving away from models which structure the urbanizing process around housing solutions, this project moves the focus to the socio-political dimensions embedded in the construction process. In an area where locals have extended constructive knowledges, the aim of the project is to present the expansion of productive units linked to material and component production as nodes of sociability and to reposition local groups as key actors in the spatial production of their surroundings.