Atado con Alambre: The Alternative Production of Ingenious Architectures

There's a saying in Argentina, in response to a sticky situation with no logical or apparent solution, that the ad-hoc, short term solution is atado con alambre: "fixed with wire". This everyday cultural practice derives from the tradition of working with what is at hand, adapting provisional solutions, and moving forward with whatever means possible. To solve a predicament with wire is to keep it working for another day, and when that day comes, a better solution will present itself. In the more developed world, this expectation of fixing life with a roll of cheap wire is hardly imaginable. Rather, we mull over the thousands of off-the-shelf solutions, and ready-mades that emerge from the vast entanglements of over-saturated, consumer society. For the architect, the hegemony of material catalogues, systems thinking, and CAD blocks ensures the continuation of the status quo and conceals the possibility of a deeper material practice.

Using case studies from the global south, this essay exposes ingenious architectures that operate in environments of material and economic scarcity. Connecting with a long tradition of related practices, from the ad-hoc to hacker to the bricoleur, these architectures work with what is within reach, not accepting materials for what they supposed to be, but for what they could be. They salvage what they can from the residue of mass materials, developing shrewd and cunning use of materials. In contrast to a regime of industrialized supply chains, ingenious architectures see materials as part of an at-hand ecology. Perhaps it is even a new kind of contemporary vernacular, showing another way of using resources, relating to the environment and benefiting the social aspects of a place.