The Distaste for the Blueprints:
Some Problems with Self-Build Housings

“But I want to actually take my driver license test,” Prashant Chatterjee protested as his Bombay caretakers told him that he already “passed” the test and his driver license had been issued; there’s nothing he could do about it.

“If you want to take the test, we could arrange one for you. But in any case, you’ve already passed the test,” said his caretakers.

“You know, in India, legality is a rarity; you often find yourself serviced and pampered by shady men with good connections – the Mafiosi. You can’t do things legally, even if you wanted to,” he says.

Prashant was an architect in the UK who migrated back to Bombay – much to the displeasure of his parents – to work in the slums. He is now visiting Bangkok for the first time; learning about the much talked about collective housing program. He already went to see the opening day of the Penang Market Commune, now he will join the other delegates in a forum on the problems of self-build housing.

I told him that in Thailand, things tend to operate very much in the same way. To get a building permit, you have to know the officials well enough so that your project does not sit on the desk for 2 years; waiting for someone to glance at it. Sometimes people get by with building substandard housing because they drink with the building inspector every Friday.

There are many success stories about the collective “self-build” housing program in Thailand that was pushed forth by a few Marxists who have managed to infiltrate the Thai government in 2003. Along with those success stories – and all “the people’s solutions” presentations - are also a few disaster stories in which the Community Organization Development Institute (CODI) is not shy about presenting them to the public. Like in India, these disasters are often related to the carefree nature of how people treated the laws and the architectural blueprints.

We sit placidly through a 15 minutes Powerpoint presentation on the “problems of self-build housing” in Thailand until the presentation screen turns blue; then it becomes a blank screen.

“That’s exactly what happened in Bombay when we do presentations,” commented Prachant as if he just encounters an old friend.

Suddenly we hear whispers flirting between the lips of two young architects.

“I knew it; your thing is so dirty.”
“No, it’s your system; you’ve been all over the places.”
“True, but when I inserted your thing,
and my whole system shuts down.”
“That’s not my problem; it’s your system, look how hot it is!”

Billy withdraws his removable drive from Kaze’s laptop unsympathetically and inserts it into another laptop with a lower temperature. After 5 minutes of clicking and complaining, the Powerpoint presentation is now back on the screen. Kaze glances at Billy with a playful eyes, then she turns back to the presentation screen.

The next slide shows an image of improvised concrete rebars; they rested inside the concrete formworks awaiting inspection. The rebars - aside from their "super smooth" surfaces - were not built correctly however, and they were soon removed from the formworks. The entire assembly was rebuilt again with the correct material under the engineer’s supervision.

This kind of problem is commonly found in projects where the villagers are building their houses. Although many of these villagers have great construction skills, they lack the knowledge of design safety measures. As a result, a few architects have come to an agreement that they – along with CODI – should starting giving design safety training to the villagers in addition to the already well-established construction training.

Architects who work with the community often have bizarre and folksy construction tales to tell his friends. Sometimes, the architect is seen begging the builders to place two intersecting beams over the center of a column; not just near it.

“Isn’t that close enough?” argued the builder.

Sometimes 3 rebar were used – instead of 4 – in a rectangular column. “It works better,” said a local builder. “Why use 4 when you can do with 3?”

Lack of design skills could also result in the overuse of materials and equipments. In one village, 3 drains were placed next to one another in an area less than 2 square meters. Had they learned to do site grading, they would have used more sloping floors, and less drains.

In another setting, when the villagers had finished building all the concrete columns at 8 feet high, they found out from the blueprints that the beams would have to be placed at 9 feet high. So they simply placed the beams over the 1 foot long rebars that are protruding from the 8 feet high columns. In this ways, the beams – supported by 4 skinny rebars – now conveniently rested at 9 feet in height.

“But they will collapse!” said the engineers in rage; removing his glasses as if to avoid seeing what was in front of him.

“When?” asked the villager. “Tell me when it will collapse; today, a month, or 10 years from now? We can live with it if it will collapse in 10 years,” he said in a serious tone.

The engineer was dumbfounded; his education and training did not teach him how to calculate the duration in which a concrete beam – supported by 4 protruding rebars - will safely collapse. Here in the village, architectural plans are seen as suggestions; they are not regarded as binding legal documents.

“That’s exactly what happened in Bombay,” says Prashant again as he shakes his head.

I glance at my watch as it is now time for the coffee break; the next session of presentation is starting right after.

“Do you know what the next sessions is about?” asks Prachant

“No I don’t. But it could yet be another presentation on the problems of Baan Mankong Collective Housing; these guys just like to present problems as if they’ve discovered them, you know. They’re very excited when they find problems with the housing program.”

“Like the local wise man in our village,” comments Prachant. “He often says that he didn’t fail a thousand time – like most people think – but he ‘discovers’ thousand different ways which could cause failure!”