House Model Exhibitions
When communities build full-scale models of their house designs and invite the government and public to see what they’ve been planning, a lot of things happen.
Here is a people’s tool which serves so many purposes it’s hard to count: model house exhibitions train people in construction, they stir up excitement, they build confidence in communities, they help people visualize affordable house designs, they show the city what the poor can do, they bring the government to your turf, they kindle interest in the city, they focus on precisely what it’s all about: a decent, affordable, secure, place to live, which is available to everyone.
Model house exhibitions have become a standard federation tool around Asia and around the world, and have been used again and again throughout the exchange network
Before they actually get secure land, communities have lots of preparation to do: saving, organising, planning, looking for land, designing, exploring infrastructure options and construction techniques, looking at finance, visiting other options. Model house exhibitions are a milestone in that process.
Here are some first-hand accounts from two recent exhibitions — one by the Kanpur Slum Dwellers Federation/Mahila Milan in Kanpur, India (December 1998), and one by the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation in Harare (June 1999).
Kanpur
The Kanpur exhibition brought together people from 43 Kanpur settlements, 200 community visitors from 21 Indian cities, 45 visitors from Namibia, South Africa, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, Nepal and Indonesia, as well as officials from local and state governments. They came to learn by doing, and I think the impact of this learning is quite dramatic. Even groups that had never been exposed to house model exhibitions before walked away saying, this works, we can do the same thing.
The three house models at Kanpur were built life-size — we put in beds, some furniture, cooking vessels — everything. You have to play house like this to really understand the different design options — two row-houses with lofts and one single-story. In India, we’ve had over 50 such exhibitions. In fact, for every huge exhibition like this, there are several small "internal" ones.Cities have a big stake in seeing these problems solved — they’re desperate for solutions. If you can show them solutions that are good for the poor and good for the city, they’ll go along. We call these "win-win solutions", and when communities are the designers of these solutions, they feel they’re real partners. Exhibitions help articulate this to the municipality — it whets their appetite. Here, the community has a chance to have a dialogue with the government out here in the open, instead of in an air-conditioned office. This is the difference between the NGO concept and the people’s concept.
With these exhibitions, communities are making a transition from a housing solution that was optimized in terrible conditions, to a solution that should be the starting point in a much more secure environment.
The actual design doesn’t really matter — you start by designing something, then build it and share it with everybody, in a way you’re comfortable with. The really important design stuff is what happens after the exhibition. Materials, dimensions, cost, ventilation — all these are locally specific. The model gives local people a framework within which they can innovate — it provides a start.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe’s first model house exhibition came at the end of month-long enumeration of poor families in the inner city area of Mbare, in Harare. It provided a public venue for presenting the census results to the government. Teams from Namibia, South Africa and India came early to help build the two full-size house models.
Because land in Harare is expensive, people in Mbare’s crowded hostels and "back-shacks" wanted to explore house options for very small plots. The Indian team — veterans of countless model exhibitions, and experts on high-density housing — had tips about positioning doors and stairs to maximize space. One 24 s.m. single-story model could be expanded later on. A more spacious (and more popular) model had 2 stories and 32 s.m. of space. Federation members spoke about how years in crowded living conditions had turned them into bad neighbors, jealous of their space. As a result, the semi-detached house model included adjacent verandahs upstairs so neighbors can talk to each other upstairs.
Discussions and design adjustments continued right up to the arrival of the first busloads of visitors, who came in their Sunday best, singing and ululating and waving their arms in the air — over 3,000 came on the opening day alone. The presence of "international guests" boosted local interest in the exhibition -. There was continuing media attention and many visitors were interested in talking to the urban poor from overseas. The Namibians shack-dwellers were filmed for television.
The South African visitors concentrated on developing a technical team in the Zimbabwe federation with a capacity to build houses, in preparation for land which had just been made available. For the new construction team, the model house provided a dry run-through of the planning and costing processes.
A few months later, the Zimbabweans were up in Namibia helping the new federation there set up their own model house exhibition— and so the tool gets passed on !
Model House Nepal
Model House Soweto S. Africa
Model House Bangkok Thailand
Bombay India
Phnom Penh House Exhibition
Scenes from Model House
Exhibition Zimbabwe
Politicians & Pledges
Building a Federation
The Big Day