The project Insect-House came about when the platform Alameda Viva, a platform with which I share certain personal and intellectual affinities, invited me to show my support for their act of resistance by occupying some of the trees of La Alameda, in Seville.
By following the fundamental premises of efficacious urban guerrilla, I designed the shelters with parts that allow for an immediate construction. The outside shell would protect us from possible aggressors using rubber balls and pressured water. The nocturnal building of the shelter requires about 4 people and takes two hours at most. The first time we built it, eight people came to help, given the lucid and participative spirit the occasion generated: Salita, Pepe, Raúl, Manu, Jaime, José, Herman, and Santi.
The bottom part of the shelter is usually 4.5 meters off the ground and serves as a stomach/storage space; the top part has a sliding shell for protection. These, together with the parts that fix and hold the shelter to the three, form a structure that has a particular insect-ventilation flowing through it continuously: this feature allows for a pleasant inhabitation in the summer months, which is when our temporary occupations tend to take place.
It is not necessary to justify what should be obvious concerning the inability of urban planning to define the development and growth of a city that finds itself incapable of action given the changes in political attitudes, which means an absolute submission to the demands of the market and ground speculation. The implicit goal of the action, and my personal ambition along with those of colleagues with a similar attitude, was to remind people and groups that, even if their voice has been considerably quieted, they are still able to act and decide, that they have a say, in the development of the city and on how this development will be carried out.
Beyond a mere ecological attitude concerning the protection of threes to be cut down, this is a strategy of opposition to plans directed, and often imposed, on the population and its style of urban life, which affect not only the inhabitants of the neighborhood, but also the vast and diverse groups of visitors who frequent the La Alameda neighborhood.
