This talk is part of the School of Architecture lecture series programme.
Santiago Cirugeda is the personification of ‘guerrilla architecture’ and set up the collective Recetas Urbanas which translates as Recipes for the City - to empower other citizens to find loopholes in planning laws to adapt and create their environments.
He has developed a series of subversive projects that explore the complexities of urban life, including the occupation of public spaces and containers; building prostheses into facades, patios and empty lots; and negotiating a way between legal and illegal zones.
Cirugeda has built housing units on rooftops, classrooms on top of a variety of institutions, and civic centres constructed from materials collected from about-to-be demolished buildings. His website details how ‘habitable scaffoldings’ can be attached to the facades of existing buildings, and other dwellings built entirely from waste materials.