Culture + Activism

The Influence of Culture and Activism on Housing

A collaboration between architects and planners.

Esther Ng, Paola Silva Perdomo, Deema Abdul Rahman, Leen Elharake, Shiraz Malul

Moving forward, we should keep the following in mind:

Consider the community you are designing for as a stakeholder in your project.
Incorporate traditions, practices, and daily life into the interior, exterior, and surrounding spaces of a community.
Connectivity and proximity between housing to cultural spaces.
Respond to urban social movements as they provide insights on the needs and wants of residents and tailor the project to fulfill those demands regarding housing, mobility, community, and open space.
Consider the cohabitation arrangements of families living in a neighborhood.

Hakka earthen apartments in Fujian Tulou - A community housing

Culture

It is important to understand the concept of culture in order to narrate the story of housing influenced by culture. While social housing is vital for people in need providing a roof may not cut it. We need to dig deeper into the community we want to build by understanding their background, respecting it, and most importantly integrating it into our design.

According to Boston University Culture,

“All the ways of life including arts, beliefs, and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called “ the way of life for an entire society.” As such, it includes codes of manner, dress, language, religion, rituals, art.”

The way of life will express these major components that build up the concept of culture.

The Way of Life

Conceptual relation between Culture and its self and culture and housing.

The diagram to the right shows the concept of culture and all its sub-components that feed into the idea of culture but also how they interact together exhibiting an overlap of concepts.

In many ways, culture has always proven itself to be a form of individual or community expression of one's own origin. Expressions of language, religion, rituals, and codes of manner have been the basis of many communities and the platform of expression in the U.S.

Language

People relate the word 'language' to the expression of thoughts. This form of communication could be verbal through speech, sign hand gestures, or written on paper. You would often see people who speak a different language have difficulty expressing themselves because words don't directly translate into their language. That is why language is seen as a form of expression and creates an identity for the individual. Many things change for people forced to migrate away from their motherland. One significant change is language. Moving to a new environment and hearing people speak a different language makes it hard for an individual to feel like they belong. That is why people are drawn to areas of the community that speak the same language. It gives them a sense of belonging and safety away from home.

A language bubble that is a country can now be a city.

Minna Sundberg

Religion

What is culture if it does not include religion?

While many modern-day individuals may disagree with that question, we can not deny the importance of religion in shaping our society for generations. Believing in God or not, his temple was the center of our cities and everything was built around it. God's temple was walking distance from home or work, it was the location where all the activities took place making it the city center. To the left, A medieval Manor shows the location of the church and all the important activities around it. The temple or the church in this case was the tallest structure for miles and sometimes the most expensive structure.

Rituals

The first thing we think about when talking about rituals is religious ones. This interaction between these two concepts goes hand-in-hand. Beyond Religion, ritual is a series of acts we regularly repeat in a precise manner, done in accordance with social custom or normal protocol. Those acts are reflected in the community through traditional festivals as shown on the right, or maybe family rituals like annual trips. These acts when performed in the community reaffirm their identity and connect them to their history, it cultivates a sense of significance and most importantly strengthens bonds between the community.

Sustenance and comfort.

Cultural Properties Administration

The Great Gatsby - Art deco - 19th Century

Codes of Manner

When we think about codes of manner we think about the English, the French, and the Great Gatsby. This last concept ties in with culture as another form of human expression that spills into society to become the new norm. This manual of guidelines will lead their lives at home, at work, and in public. Codes of manner became a construct that distinguished the rich from the poor and promoted classism. Intentionally or unintentionally, the city took formation in accordance with classes, sectioning each other and driving the lower class away.

A tool for an imaginary line.

Culture + Housing

The Impact of Culture on Housing

The building of the previous section plays a vital role to tie both concepts of culture and housing together. It is the foundation for what is coming next.

Regional Scale

On a regional scale in the United States, a diversity of languages is used to communicate and express culture. Spanish is the most prominent language besides English in both Arizona and California.

Concentration of the Latino Population in Phoenix, AZ, 2019

Community Scale

On a community scale, language concentrations of a population or a language can be dispersed throughout the community. In Maricopa County, there are concentrations of Latinos throughout Phoenix. Other portions of the county have lower concentrations of Latinos.

Koreatown Los Angeles

Detroit, Michigan

Outside of the data, language is visually portrayed within communities. In Koreatown Los Angeles, shop signs can be seen with Korean letters which creates a distinction of culture in the area. This is similar to Arabic lettering in a community in Detroit, Michigan. Larger concentrations of one culture can bring forth unique languages within those communities.

Although distinct languages can exist within concentrations of a community, so can a diversity of languages. Diversity of language in a community helps facilitate acceptance and understanding of different cultures. Both scenarios are important in creating spaces that possess culture.

Religion can be ingrained in a community to accommodate the needs of the worshipper. For example, Jewish neighborhoods tend to be more walkable from the home to the temple, especially in Orthodox communities. This is especially important since Jews celebrate Shabbat, which is a weekly day of rest. Shabbat requires time for prayer and recuperation from the week. Folks who celebrate this weekly day of rest may not use electronics, drive in their cars or work. It is essential that neighborhoods are walkable to the temple, to accommodate the beliefs of the Jews living within their communities.

Religion within the Home

The home is a space of sanctuary that can be structured based on a person's religion. In Hinduism, Vastu Shashtra is a text which explains the design and layout of a space. It is practiced based on the science of space and magnetic fields that must be aligned to provide peace in your home. For example, a bedroom should be placed in the southwest portion of the home, and the head of the bed must face south or east. This helps provide balance in the space and ensures a better night's sleep.

Another example, Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese art followed by many religions including Taoism and Buddhism. In Feng Shui, energy and environmental forces must exist within a space to create balance. The goal is to balance the 5 elements, water, wood, fire, earth, and metal within the home to achieve true peace and prosperity in your space and in life.

Religion is important to balance within the home and in the community. It is important to consider significant religions which exist to accommodate the needs of these folks.

Individual vs Communal Housing

Mono-Nuclear Families

Homes which include only one family within the home (Parent/Parents, Children)

Multigenerational

Homes including many generations of family within the home. (Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Parents, Children, Cousins)

Communal

Rituals surrounding the involvement of food and meal times have been significant for generations. When reflecting on how housing is built in Phoenix, outdoor spaces are prominent gathering spaces for communities. This includes activities like barbequing, cornhole, or being in the pool. This has led to an increase in indoor-outdoor combination spaces in housing design because of these rituals.

Individual

Home has become a measure of value for a person or family. This is especially prominent in the rise of suburbia. Larger homes farther from cities have contributed to suburban lifestyles and rituals. For example, homes were designed with dual dining rooms for formal and everyday eating.

The rise of consumerism led to a new domestic American family. Diversity in family living arrangements has increased since the early 1960s, and so has the fluidity of family. The classic two-parent household is declining in the United States with the increase in non-marital cohabitation and divorce. Families are smaller, both due to the growth of single-parent households and the drop in fertility.

Significance of Culture in Housing

A home provides necessary space to sustain, shelter, nourish and recharge people. It fulfills the need for privacy, comfort, and adaptability. An exterior or interior of a space can hold significance and memory to oneself, developing a greater sense of purpose and tradition in a space.

Urban Meaning

Urban Social Movements

Urban Form

The elements of culture previously discussed give rise to urban meaning based on the values shared by a community. Historically, debates between social classes and groups over urban meaning determine urban form, which are the cities we have today. In his book, The City and the Grassroots, Castells wrote that, "Any theory of the city must be, at its starting point, a theory of social conflict.” And so, urban movements are true projects of cities that allow residents to shape and control their built environment, public space and provision of services.

Three Goals for Urban Social Movements:

Collective Consumption Trade Unionism- To obtain for the residents a city organized around its use value, as against the notion of urban living and services as a commodity.

Community Movement- The search for cultural identity, for the maintenance of ethnically-based or historically originated cultures

Citizen Movement- The search for increasing power for local government, neighborhood decentralization, and urban self-management.

The following sections explain the three movements using examples from our sites of study: Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Mexico City.

Collective Consumption Trade Unionism

These are movements striving to defend the urban commons and set social barriers against the overwhelming commodification of life. They involve forms of self-organization such as demonstrations, protests, sit-ins, and squats. Activists in this case are dedicating their time and effort in order to push public policies beyond their bureaucratic ethos, not only those related to housing but also in the provision, access, maintenance of public services including public transit, education, water and electricity supply, sewerage, food etc...

Demonstrating

Phoenix, AZ- Residents at Periwinkle Mobile Home Park being forced out of their homes and can’t afford to move.

Squatting

Los Angeles, CA- A dozen vacant homes reclaimed by unhoused tenants as calls for rent strike grow across US.

Community Movements

The reclaiming or appropriation of urban spaces where people gather by groups that typically feels excluded, dispossessed, exploited and alienated by the system. They go to the streets, plazas, green areas and especially the city center to express their identity and culture, illuminating spatial practices in line with the "right to the city". Depending on the context, these groups could include women, non-white and minority ethnic groups, migrants targeted by police raids, the youth, the elderly, disabled people, homeless people, prostitutes, indigenous populations, diverse gender and sexual identities, street vendors, urban outcasts and others.

Organizing

Phoenix, AZ- Dilla Libre serves a hot Thanksgiving meal to people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic.

Los Angeles, CA- South Central Farmers at their general meeting.

Citizen Movements

Movements demanding more control over one's living environment are often radical. They are a direct consequence of governmental or institutional negligence. Groups can choose to either be cooperative or disruptive in participatory urban governance. Radical activists are usually not interested or excluded from participatory planning initiatives organized by the city as those have become very moderate and institutionalized at best, acting as a means of legitimation of ready-made policies. Citizens’ participation in urban plans and policies, and their critical voices when they feel excluded. Initiatives that help establish public-state partnerships guided by the principles of economic redistribution and social well-being would emphasize the importance of allowing activists to participate in decision-making processes.

Controlling

La Polvorilla, MX- Autonomous alternative housing movement with absolute commitment to organizational autonomy.

Los Angeles, CA- City Council shut down by protesters again, then bans homeless camps by schools.

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