Architect Gary Leggett: “We have to think in extreme water scarcity scenarios” | INTERVIEW

In the reflections aroused as a result of the bicentennial, Architecture, as a specialty, has a lot to say: from the subject of housing, transport and urban planning, but also with regard to projects on future scenarios to face —if it is still possible— the climate crisis, the scarcity of water and the territorial problems that will be unleashed in the coming decades, and that will affect our urban conglomerates in various ways. In this way, the Architecture and City Research Center (CIAC) and the Architecture Unit of the Catholic University of Peru have organized an exhibition and a virtual seminar called “Peru as a project: contributions from architecture and urbanism ”. A sample of studies and plans on five thematic axes: project heritage, sustainability, housing in Peru, territorial policies and the future of the city.

In this regard, we spoke with the architect Gary Leggett, CIAC deputy director, who highlights the intergenerational participation between teachers and students of the specialty to carry out these activities: “the exhibition seeks to make visible the work of many people that can have resonance and be applicable to reality”.

Among the themes developed in the exhibition “Peru as a project: contributions from architecture and urbanism”, which ones do you find the most salient considering the present and future challenges of the country?

The interesting thing about the exhibition, and about the CIAC in general, is that there is no single priority topic, there are many. But personally, I would say that issues related to sustainability and the climate crisis are undoubtedly the most urgent. There is much to do there. Now, the research that we are presenting also puts on the agenda issues that have to do with thinking about cities from the creation of centralities, in which mass transport systems are linked with cultural infrastructures and greater housing density, and that can be applied in many cities, as we are not interested in pigeonholing ourselves only in Lima. We also need to rethink the issue of housing, the role that the State and the private sector should have, and finally think about what things we are ignoring when favoring a real estate market that only thinks in square meters …

On the subject of housing, real estate companies seem only to accumulate projects in the city, but not to plan it, how to reorient this in the face of what is coming which, as you warn, has to do with challenges such as the lack of water or the shortage of services?

It is a huge challenge. It involves thinking about housing not only as an interchangeable economic unit, but around an ecosystem of services and public goods, and that implies much clearer management tools that are difficult for us to implement or imagine right now, but that implies going further Beyond the binary public sector, private sector and think about collaboration strategies between both sectors. Moreover, it is necessary to break with the scheme that the public sector has nothing to do with the housing sector because, finally, it is the one that can provide the services or incentives that are necessary so that it is not reduced to a commercial exchange.

What is the danger that we run if this change does not occur?

What ends up happening, and we see it every day, are cities where the public is left at the mercy of real estate speculation; In other words, buildings proliferate, but they do not think about the quality of the street, or the transport and the costs that this implies as a society, in addition to the pollution issues. And we see this not only in consolidated areas, but in peri-urban land speculation that causes conurbations to form that, finally, extend the city beyond its service networks. Another thing is that communal property is often almost demonized in many rural or peri-urban areas, and subdivision or individual titling is favored, sometimes without any awareness of where this usually occurs. And one sees what is happening in places like the Urubamba Valley, which is the emblematic case of a place that has enormous tourist and economic value, and that is being destroyed by land speculation, which is a direct product of an agenda of land liberalization.

Does it basically have to do with problems of the territory?

Yes, with the management of the territory. In the Sacred Valley, to continue with the example, there will be a higher incidence of fires due to climate change, and that will be closely related to the human presence in regions that were perhaps not so populated before. The way we plan something like an entire valley will be key to managing the environmental crises that are coming our way. It is time to go beyond that anachronistic binary of public versus private, we must stop demonizing both sectors, but we are in a moment of extreme political tension that does not allow us to see that.

The issue of transportation continues to be neuralgic, especially at a time of pandemic …

Yes, and it is actually interesting to see how bicycle use has increased, at least in Lima, as a result of the pandemic; In other words, this shows that it is possible to change a transport matrix in a short time. All you need is political will, instruments, incentives and a minimal infrastructure, such as a bicycle lane. I believe that transportation is a complex problem, but this does not mean that the solutions have to be complicated. The difficult thing is to build and sustain a political will in this regard. We must not forget that this is a problem created by behavior patterns that have been encouraged for a long time, but that are possible to change, as evidenced by the use of the bicycle.

More bicycles are being ridden now than before the pandemic

Yes, but I don’t mean to say that the bicycle is the solution to all our problems. In such a big city you have to have redundancies, many ways to get from one place to another, from bicycles to buses, subways, and private cars. Obviously, you also have to encourage some things and discourage others. Anyone who wants to use his vehicle will have to pay a little more to park where he wants, for example, and that will not happen if he decides to ride a bicycle or walk to a place. It is something that is solved with incentives and disincentives and with the strategic construction of infrastructure and security.

What would you highlight, finally, of the projects that will be exhibited in the sample?

The first thing I would highlight is that not all of them are closed projects, there is a lot of ongoing research, and I think that is consistent with the idea of ​​the project as something continuous. In architecture one can finish a project, but when it enters the construction stage, new situations appear that sometimes force us to change what was planned. That ability to keep things ajar is something that we have tried to do at the exhibition, showing research projects that are just starting or that are in progress, all related to topics that seem particularly urgent to us. There are projects on river fronts in the Amazon, that is, we can rethink the way in which urban centers relate to the river, there are also others linked to collective housing, the recycling or reuse of existing buildings, the role of water in design. urban, studies on high Andean housing, we have many people at CIAC thinking about these issues and developing materials or heat retention strategies or improving thermal behavior from the use of non-conventional materials and other architectural devices. There are several specialists working on different fronts and it seems important to me that there is also intergenerational communication between teachers and students.

One of the axes has to do with the future of the city, as you imagine, for example, the cities of Peru in the tricentennial

I believe that we handle enough information and data to consider possible scenarios, not certainties, and the role of architecture, of urban planning, is to be able to anticipate what is possible, design and plan in a way that gives us a certain capacity for adaptation and flexibility. I would say that we have to think in extreme scenarios of water scarcity, of climate change, to make the necessary changes that question the way we live today and prepare us for those possible futures. I do not believe that there is a single future to which we have to respond, but rather scenarios with many unknowns, where possibility is the determining factor.

To access the virtual exhibition and see the seminar program, with virtual sessions, until October 29 you can visit the page https://www.proyecto-ciac.pe/. As part of the program, the next Monday, October 4, at 6:00 pm, the book “City and architecture of the Republic. Encuadres 1821-2021 ”, by Willey Ludeña. All the events of the seminar are transmitted by Facebook Live CIAC-PUCP