The neverending house
The global housing crisis exposes a deeper failure to grasp what it means to dwell, not just to possess shelter. Santiago’s self-built neighborhoods reveal how housing emerges not as a finished commodity but as an ongoing, materially constrained process shaped by kinship and necessity, challenging the assumption that technical solutions alone can address the crisis of belonging in contemporary cities.
How does the article challenge the conventional view of housing as a static commodity?
It argues that self-built homes expose the building-dwelling bond as an active, intergenerational process where the house evolves alongside the lives of its inhabitants, rather than being a pre-fabricated object delivered to passive occupants. This contrasts with state-led or market-driven housing, which treats dwellings as completed units detached from the social and material rhythms of their users.
What role does kinship play in the construction and use of self-built homes?
Kinship is materially embedded in the house itself, as rooms, materials, and labor circulate among family members to accommodate changing needs. The house becomes a site of obligation and continuity, where refusal to contribute—such as withholding cement—can sever relational ties, demonstrating how housing and social bonds are mutually constitutive.
Why does the author argue that self-built housing is an 'archetype' rather than a mere typology?
Because it reveals conditions essential to all housing—such as adaptability, materiality, and the inseparability of building from dwelling—that are obscured in finished, market-driven homes. The precariousness of self-built environments exposes the underlying fragility of the assumption that a house can ever be 'complete' or fully detached from the lives it shelters.
How does Heidegger’s philosophy of dwelling inform the article’s critique of modern housing?
Heidegger’s reversal of the building-dwelling relationship—where dwelling precedes and defines building—challenges the modern tendency to treat housing as a technical problem solvable through efficiency and standardization. The article uses this framework to argue that the 'real plight of dwelling' lies not in the lack of houses but in the loss of their ontological connection to human existence.
Ce que ça pourrait changer
The article suggests that housing policies and urban planning must move beyond technical fixes to acknowledge the social and material processes that make a house a home. It also warns against the financialization of housing, which treats dwellings as assets rather than sites of lived experience, potentially deepening alienation in cities already grappling with displacement and unaffordability.
