Reflections on the construction of the "Slum"

"Fantasy saves the Planning" Workshop
Daniele Pario Perra
Feb. 11-12, 2008

The most difficult part of this workshop is organization. Within the 2-day workshop, we spent one whole day to organize what to do. Dividing the groups into 4 to 5 people from 37 students was a disaster. However, it was quite fun to see many of the master students couldn't be able to count 1 to 7 in the right order.

The word "planning" might sound important at first, but once it reached to the construction part, it suddenly vanished. We faced numerous problems. The search for unused materials and then transported them on the 8th floor was not an easy task. The security from the faculty was quite hash on us. During the construction part, we faced the problems of the lack of tools, materials and cooperativeness. Because of these problems, the other groups started to help one another in order to finish the construction on time.

In general, this workshop is quite unique. We could actually experience how the slum dwellers build their homes. Although in our case, it is not as extreme as the reality, but it caused us to consider and question on what the slum dwellers actually need and the physicological aspect of it.