Building space and culture
Preparing for class this week, I was struck by the following bit from Elizabeth Wilson’s Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women:
“A neglect of the needs of women has often militated against the success of [developing world] self-help housing projects. For example, a failure to recognise that women as well as men engage in paid employment leads to a male bias when ’squatters’ are relocated … [only] near factories or other sites of male employment…
Another way in which women are ignored and excluded is that they are not consulted on issues such as the design of houses. For example, the object of the Tanzanian ‘Better Housign Campaign’ was to persuade people to build more durable houses, built of imported materials, to replace traditional ones built with local materials. One unintended effect of the higher costs of building with imported materials was that it impeded the tradition of building separate accomodation for male and female members of families. As a result, women were redefined as dependants, and their traditional autonomy was undermined. In two housing projects in Tunis, houses were designed with a much smaller courtyard than in traditional design. Because Muslim women, spending most of their time in the home, needed this internal space, its absence caused depression and even suicide.”
Given the extensive rebuilding that will be required in the wake of the tsunami, let’s hope that agencies like Habitat for Humanity, Architecture for Humanity and Shelter for Life build culturally, as well as physically, sound places.