HHI asked my friend, Kenzaburo Oe the Nobel laureate for literature how to best spend the money and he said, “You researched villages around the world. You are an architect. Shouldn’t you make a new village?” That made me think about the five-to-thirty percent of people in South American cities living illegally on occupied land they have no other way to survive. So I created for them a prototype of a family dwelling, three towers connected by bridges: one for the husband, the middle one for the wife, and the third for the children. The towers can be easily assembled by the people who will live there I made sure that all prefabricated parts are light enough for one or two persons to carry.
RHWhy are the family towers separated?
HHThe Experimental House was a conceptual manifesto. To live together does not mean you must share the same room. Separate spaces support individual lives at the same time you stay closely connected to your group, with bridges. Distance is no barrier anymore, even on a global scale. With our communication technologies, the farthest person away can feel like the closest person to you. It is amusing to think that where I stand right now in Tokyo, exactly under me on the other side of the planet is Montevideo, for which I created this do-it-yourself house. For people there, the farthest architect away from them designed a dwelling and became the closest to them. I wanted to say I have not forgotten them, even though I build mega-skyscrapers for an economy that they can never be part of.
RHYour social activism goes back to your upbringing in the ’60s.
HHI still have the ’60s revolution in me; it drove me out into the world, made me research villages, made me see what life is made of on this planet.
RHWhat about young architects today, surrounded by fashion, consumerism and stardom is that their only inspiration?
