During 1975 the Architect Christopher Alexander designed and built an experimental project for low income people in the city of Mexicali, Mexico. The aim of the project was to create a beautiful place, not just of architectural beauty but in its essential spirit, in its quality of life. A number of patterns, taken from the book A Pattern Language, were used to design the environment. The residents played an important role in the design of their place: this, according to the author, would guarantee that the place would directly respond to their physical and spiritual needs. / Today, 20 years later, the project has undergone a lot of changes. People have continued the building process by themselves. Additions, modifications and changes in the use of spaces have blended the project with the neighborhood. This research attempts to describe the project's changes, to explain the motivating factors in its changes, and to evaluate the designer's original goals. It reveals the discrepancy between the architect's intentions and the actual needs of the residents. In this respect, the transformations observed show the incorporation of a culturally-based production process, suggesting the existence of an already inherent building practice that was neglected in the Mexicali approach.

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This study compares housing in two lower-income self help settlement types -- community-based and individualistic -- in two contemporary Mexican urban settings: Mexico City and Tlalnepantla. The research investigates differences in housing design preferences of occupant-builders, reflections of these preferences in built environments, and resulting housing consolidation levels. Of seven elicited housing design preferences investigated, only one suggests statistically significant differences between settlement types in both cities. Community- based settlement respondents tend to prefer an ideology for minimal and equal housing for alIi while individualistic settlement respondents, in contrast, focus on individuals' economic problems in securing private housing. Analyses of the two built environment types show design preference differences reflected in built housing. / Ph. D.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 101). / The traditional way of designing housing of the Mexican government agencies, obliges the population they serve (mostly working class people), to live in rigid dwellings that have little or no flexibility to be adapted to the dweller's changing needs throughout time, or to the technological and economic improvements. The increasing participation of the Government agencies in the production of housing in Mexico, a nd the critical housing shortage, makes urgent a restatement of the design guide lines that have been used up to now. The purpose of this thesis is to emphasize the need of adaptable housing and to suggest some changes to the standards traditionally used by public developers in order to make their housing design more adaptable. Taking as a case study the main public housing agency in Mexico ( INFONAVIT) , first I made a survey in one of the oldest and biggest housing complexes of INFONAVIT (el Rosario), in order to clarify certain issues about the use of spaces and the kind of needs that make dwellers modify their dwellings. Afterwards, I analyzed these changes to find out patterns of modification, looking for the changes that are most likely to occur and in what ways these changes can be facilitated. In the final part of the thesis, I make some suggestions of alterations that could be done to the standards of design in order to produce more adaptable housing. / by Andrea M. Martin. / M.S.

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The concept of progressive development--the construction of houses in stages--represents a fundamental principle of the sites and services approach, the most popular policy put forth to deal with the present Third World housing shortage. Through an analysis of the development process occurring in a completed sites and services project in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, this thesis investigates such a concept as a physical phenomenon. The physical evolution of the houses towards consolidation is analyzed with regard to two of the factors that shape the development process: the habitable area, and the construction quality, from which the people's physical priorities for housing are inferred. The findings of this study are compared with those of earlier studies, and the broader implications of such findings are briefly outlined. This study suggests that space takes precedent over permanence as a priority in the course of the early development of the house.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (M. Arch. in Advanced Studies)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH / Bibliography: leaf 81. / by Jose A. Aldrete-Haas. / M.C.P.

The study of changes in the use of domestic space has received little attention in the past despite the implications of such research for everything from archaeology to architecture. This dissertation investigates the relationship between changes in domestic space use and sociocultural factors bearing on space use. A conceptual framework outlining the systemic relationships between domestic space use and various environmental, biological, and sociocultural factors is presented in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2 a set of data expectations is generated to test certain relationships established by the framework. Because of the existence of prior data on space use, the village of Diaz Ordaz, Oaxaca, Mexico was chosen as a study site. In Chapter 3 the village is described and placed in national and regional perspective, while in Chapter 4 demographic, economic, housing, and rural service changes in the village are outlined and viewed in light of similar national and regional changes. Chapter 5 treats changes in domestic space use particularly. A summary of trends of change in village domestic space and pertinent sociocultural variables is presented, followed by a review of the demographic, economic, and political conditions affecting the village today and a discussion of how these conditions relate to the trends of change. Tofts from the sample studied are classified on two scales: (1) the degree of development of space use and (2) the number of changes in space use. Explanatory models for both change in solar quality and the number of changes between two points in time are constructed and tested. It is determined that in the Diaz Ordaz case toft quality dropped with the gradual demise of the household and rose with an increase of income. On the other hand, the number of changes on a toft between two points in time appears to depend on relative wealth. Thus, given the economic, political, and demographic conditions of Mexico today, it appears that in rural villages diachronic change in domestic space use reflects changes in social/demographic and economic factors.

Thesis. 1977. M.Arch.A.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography : p. 60. / M.Arch.A.S.