It all started in the summer of 1995, when a seminar on popular housing in the developing world was held in the coastal town of Ixtapa- Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Organized conjointly by the Minimum Cost Housing Group of the McGill University School of Architecture, the College of Architects of the State of Guerrero and the municipal government in Ixtapa- Zihuatanejo, it addressed problems of informal and low-income settlements and examined strategies for their upgrading.
The team of seven students left Montreal in early June and worked on site in Zihuatanejo and La Esperanza from June 10 to August 2. The material that they have collected and assembled presents a snapshot –a time exposure, to be more accurate – of the community. It includes large-scale measured drawings of a selection of houses, hundreds of photographs and slides, eight hours of video, and a comprehensive portfolio of sketches and watercolours. It describes the topography of the site and how living patterns acknowledge the landscape; it documents local building traditions and built form in relation to climate and to material and human resources; and it examines infrastructure and site services and the extraordinary extent to which the residents, particularly the women, are able to provide for their families under adverse conditions.
Their fieldwork and upgrading proposals are eloquently and colourfully described in the twelve essays compiled in Fingers of Hope.