Architecture of the building process: an inquiry on community based design

Abstract

Community-based Architecture can generally be termed as a process of building production that relies on collective communal effort in order to build spaces for collective communal use. A process of such ‘collective’ building would naturally require the contribution of multiple actors, resulting in a dynamic decision-making environment during the design and construction phases of a building. This study sets out to evaluate how such an atmosphere of multiple and dynamic decision-making impacts on the ‘architectural’ performance of the final product. The study argues that, in such context, architecture must embrace the input of a broader socio-cultural system, seek the benefit of the social capital, and more importantly, view building as a social process that accommodates a variety cultural demands, technical pressures, and on-site decision-making interventions. Subsequently, the study examines how the design of a building system changes during its production process, in what ways specific actors and situations contribute to this dynamic behavior of design and construction changes, and the subsequent qualitative impact on the building product. The study concludes that, in Community-based Architecture, the building design is often in the mode of constant change, whereas the building project must be recognized as a socio-cultural system birthed by a specific socio-cultural process. Therefore, it is paramount that the building design and construction process must be organized with a latitude for changes and tolerances for variations. In doing so, it establishes a position - and a theoretical framework - on how the processes and principles of building can be altered, amended and re-defined during the on-site decision making process, thereby bringing up the intellectual need to acknowledge the way in which the ‘process of building’ generates, changes and re-defines the ‘architecture of a product’.