See more objects with the tag construction, housing, exchange, building materials.

Object Timeline

  • We acquired this object.

2003

  • Work on this object began.

2008

  • Work on this object ended.

2016

2024

  • You found it!

Incremental Housing

This is a Project. It is dated 2003–08. Its medium is chile: concrete, brick concrete, wood panels; mexico: concrete, concrete blocks, stucco, plaster, paint.

In Chile, the government has hired the Chilean architecture firm Elemental to design a new social housing unit that can increase—rather than depreciate—in value over time. The architects designed half-built houses, called Incremental Housing, for poor families in the neighborhood of Quinta Monroy, in Iquique, consisting of the half of the house the families would never be able to afford—the structure, bathroom, kitchen, and roof. To allow for expansion, only the ground and top floors are constructed; residents are responsible for the rest. The government of Nuevo León, Mexico, employed a similar model, increasing each unit’s market value to $50,000 from the initial $20,000 subsidy.

  • 10 x 10 Sandbag House
  • sandbags, timber ecobeams, cement plaster, timber cladding, metal sheet roof,....
  • CITIES.001

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/420778931/ |title=Incremental Housing |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=25 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>