Advisor: Maira Martins
Dissertation: The Construction of the Home in Social Housing Production: The Case of the San Francisco Housing Complex, Asuncion, Paraguay
Defense date: 11/04/2023
Abstract
This research aims to investigate the construction of the home from the
forms of appropriation of space, demonstrated by the residents of the social housing
complex, called San Francisco, in Asuncion, Paraguay. This complex was built to
relocate the population from an informal settlement called La Chacarita, located on
the banks of the Paraguay River in the historic center of Asuncion, which faces
cyclical flooding and was affected by urban infrastructure interventions that
aggravated this situation.
Considering that this population has suffered a process of compulsory
removal from their original settlement, this research seeks to identify the forms of
appropriation in a programmed space, fruit of an architectural project making them
created spaces, that is, transformed from the production of adaptation tactics by the
inhabitants themselves (Machado-Martins; Trotta, 2020), and how the removal
influences this appropriation process. For this, we will consider historical facts that
were collected from intensive bibliographical research, and the trajectories and
experiences of the families until arriving at their place of residence, observing and
analyzing the processes of adaptation and transformation in the set.
Since the relationship between the lived environment and people establishes
a mutual exchange – because people transform places, but places also interfere in
people’s practices and create a habit – this research mobilizes the concept of
dwelling, not only as the use of space itself, but as a basic relationship between the
individual and the world, of appropriation of the place, of creating bonds, of a sense
of belonging and identity between the person and the place (Pallasmaa, 2016; Tuan,
1983). Sense of home is also considered as a construct demonstrated from the
appropriation of space and the endowment of meanings to place.