SIGUS: Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement\n\n

SIGUS: Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement

SIGUS -- the Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement -- links housing and community interests in the Departments of Architecture and Urban Studies. It offers workshops, short courses, and carries out research stressing participatory methods in promoting affordable and equitable housing. SIGUS started in 1984 and grew out of experience in developing countries and has evolved to include the developed countries with a commonality of issues and approaches.

SIGUS explores the new professionalism emerging for architects and planners. It offers a linked series of interactive, hands-on workshops throughout the year. The "SIGUS-way" typically hosts a 2-week, field-based workshop in January, held in collaboration with a partner university abroad. The theme is then explored through shorter activities at MIT, bringing in resource people who have effectively linked theory and practice. Previous workshops were developed around the theme "Rebuilding Communities", and were held in Vietnam (Ho Chi Ming City), Thailand (Chiang Mai) and Cambodia (Phnom Penh), and most recently in the Philippines (Manila). Special workshops are held focused on current concerns, for example, “Rebuilding Kabul” exploring ways to reestablish the destroyed housing areas, and “The Tsunami Challenge: After the Tent” which offered teams the opportunity to develop ideas and present in Washington.

Current SIGUS interests include research on tools for empowering users, community based participatory techniques for preparing development plans and self-built housing processes exploring homecenters as effective support elements. Third World slum improvement was prepared for the Cities Alliance, a joint World Bank and UN Habitat initiative, and features a web site and CD resource for practitioners. A new program, the Louisiana Lift House Initiative, is focused on sustainable housing in the coastal areas of southern United States. It provides support to TRAC, a local mitigation NGO, and to Oxfam American, in four areas: 1 - development of a prototype ‘lift’ house which is cultural sensitive, hurricane safe, energy efficient, and tailored to volunteer participation; 2 - improving the permitting process to upgrade housing quality through increased code compliance; 3 - an outreach program to the informal DIY builders; and 4 - testing of innovations in construction and materials in a demonstration housing program.

SIGUS offers related presentations throughout the year, and formal courses on low income housing in developing countries. In the fall, an introductory course on structuring low-income housing projects provides a comprehensive setting for understanding third world development issues. A course on tools and techniques for the "new participatory practitioner" is offered in the spring.

SIGUS is supported by student assistants from the Department of Architecture and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. An alumni network is maintained through SIGUS Net, which provides outside support for SIGUS activities.