arrival of neoliberalism and President Salinas
de Gortari, the Mexican State stopped
providing housing and left the production up
to private developers. Housing ceased to be
a right and instead became a market asset.
Then, in 2000, President Vicente Fox focused
on the massive construction of houses, from
a commercial perspective. Many were located
outside urban centres where land was cheap.
Quality and access to urban equipment and
public space were set aside. This generated
territorial, economic and social crises, forcing
many residents to leave the houses because
of the long commutes, violence and lousy
housing quality. Both in rural areas and in cit-
ies, the same housing models were repeated
regardless of the environmental context and
the needs of families.
JAC: In the case of rural com-
munities, housing construction has been
an act of colonization that imposes itself
on traditional ways of living. It eliminates
people’s participation in the management and
production of their habitat and denies the use
of local materials and traditional construction
systems. Federal subsidies for construction
and self-construction only allow the produc-
tion of houses with industrialized materials.Yet, your work revolves around
regional conservation...
MOG: We work together with the communi-
ties to defend their right to self-determination
and to preserve the elements that constitute
their cultural identity and habitat. We
recognize housing as a right and as a cultural
asset that derives from the symbiotic rela-
tionship that communities have with their
territory. We always start by listening in order
to understand all dimensions of the local
ways of living – from cultural to territorial and
everything in between. Once we do, it is our
turn to contribute to the dialogue with propos-
als for structural improvements to traditional
housing, and to demonstrate that it is feasible
to build with traditional materials today. The
way in which we carry out these improve-
ments is always based on local construction
wisdom, recognizing that the communities
safeguard ancestral knowledge of theirterritory and are the only ones who know the
construction techniques they have generated
over the years.
JAC: After the earthquakes in
2017, the federal government’s strategy for
reconstruction was to provide electronic cards
conditioned to purchase industrial materi-
als at urban suppliers. Local producers of
traditional materials suffered severe damage.
As a response, in collaboration with Unitierra
and Comité Ixtepecano, we decided to work
together with native communities in Oaxaca
in southern Mexico. Through participatory
processes, we could reinforce the autonomy
of the Ixtepecan familias and make improve-
ments to the damaged traditional houses
made of Adobe and Bajareque, construction
systems based on mud and straw. These
modifications do not seek to reinterpret their
form, function or spatial relationship, but to
increase their resistance. We collaborate to
keep the construction diversity alive
in Mexico.•
comunaltaller.comSocial Housing Production: Exercise I- conducted in conjunction with the
Tepetzintán community – explored
the creation of a culturally appropriate
residential model using local materials
such as bamboo, stone and wood.
36 In Practice