Resilience in architecture: Housing as a process

Abstract

This work starts with a hypothesis that housing design process can be an open system, whose resilience becomes positive when it is understood as a process with multiple agents, among one of them is the architect. Current housing production presents inadequacies and flexibility problems that bring this system to an unbalanced situation, which makes it more difficult for people to modify the space they live. This work aims to identify if and how the insertion of other architectural strategies in housing production could foster its resilience. In order to reach this objective, this research uses an explanatory approach based on a literature review on the theme and case studies. Firstly, the concepts of system and resilience are explored under approaches that cover the reductionist and the systemic paradigm. After that, some discussions regarding housing and counter-hegemonic practices are presented. Finally, selected case studies are analysed from the perspective of the resilience characteristics in order to verify if they develop the concept of housing as a continuous process. The results enforce the need for shifting the emphasis of current housing schemes to a new configuration of dynamic balance and highlight the role of open and informational processes to achieve this goal.