Primer Hogar, Communal-Living Housing: Humberto Lopez Villanueva '20 M.Arch

Throughout the United States, border towns face social and economic issues that affect minority groups and immigrants. These communities are sometimes forced to choose a different lifestyle that secludes them in areas with minimal amenities and that far away from common services—such as people living in RV parks.

Humberto Lopez Villanueva's project, Primer Hogar, is located in San Ysidro, a border town in the state of California, with a 94 percent Hispanic population and vast amounts of pollution and vehicular density. Primer Hogar attempts to help the low-income immigrant communities who are homeless and lack a sense of belonging within the U.S. The main purpose of the project is to provide housing opportunities in a place where different target groups can develop and integrate within the larger communities.

Primer Hogar is developed with three different performance realms, starting with cultural specificity, the inclusion of the Mexican culture as means to develop the architecture for this specific group. The second performance realm is context mediation, the allocation of physical and social issues that create architectural solutions. Lastly, the third performance realm is to foster the community, the creation of spaces that promote the development of the individual communities within the project at different levels that culminates with social integration.

Image Gallery

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All images are by Humberto Lopez Villanueva and may not be used or reproduced without express written permission of their creator.