After reflecting on design capable of establishing 'emotional belonging' and the antipatterns of social housing, Nikos A. Salingaros, David Brain, Andres M. Duany, Michael W. Mehaffy, and Ernesto Philibert-Petit continue their series of articles on social housing in Latin America. In this installment, the text addresses how control influences urban form and ways of living.
A Clear and Recognizable “Geometry of Power”
The psychological process of control influences urban form and the shaping of social housing to an extraordinary extent. Control can be manifested in both architectural geometry and urban layout. A rigid, mechanical geometry dictates the shape of individual buildings and urban spaces, while the geometry of their layouts determines the relationship between separate buildings and the form of the street network. There are many opportunities to express control in urban and architectural terms, and these can be found in all government-built social housing.
