Humble approaches.

GOOD DEEDS, GOOD DESIGN: COMMUNITY SERVICE THROUGH ARCHITECTURE

Edited by Bryan Bell. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. 2004. [pounds sterling]21.95

Here is an American equivalent of the useful Community Planning Handbook that Nick Wates edited for Earthscan in 2000. It begins with the finding that in the United States only two per cent of new home occupiers have the services of an architect. Bryan Bell set about organizing a series of conferences on 'Structures for Inclusion', concerned with bringing professional help to the other 98 per cent.

In this particular field, many of us have speculated about the fact that there are already off-the-shelf readymade components for anything anyone wants to build, but have also noted, as George Elvin puts it in his chapter, 'the difficulty of creating a harmonious aesthetic effect using this approach'. Several contributors explore the possibilities of doing just this.

The authors also remind us that low-income people are not simple. They know what their needs are and what measures might give them choice in the environment that they seek. It is important that professionals should grasp the key fact that what the poor lack is access to the finance needed to manage the habitat.

The book has sequences of pictures of the demolition of public housing in the United States, decades before the loans to build it have been repaid. The message is that humbler approaches controlled by residents would have been cheaper and more durable.