Self-sustainability of the post-colonial North Africa habitat between individual and collective spheres

Abstract

The Modern habitats of Morocco and Algeria are an interesting metaphor of the structured, rich and dramatic comparison between the different cultures on the two sides of the Mediterranean sea. This study recognises the complexities and intrinsic qualities contained in the original plans of the most significant mass-housing projects of the 1950s-1960s in Casablanca and Algiers, outlining the main processes of continuous transformation and adaptation between the individual and collective spheres. The tension between living and settlement models, product of an “enlightened rationalism” (but nonetheless authoritarian) and the tumultuous process of appropriation of the colonial peripheries by new social players that reinterpret them to their extent, constitutes an extremely interesting field of analysis and design.