The invisible houses: re-thinking and designing low-cost housing in developing countries

Not willing to limit the problem of low-cost, slum housing in developing countries to the shortage of their number or inadequacy of their form in The Invisible Houses, author Gonzalo Lizaralde draws on Calvino’s (1972) poetic invocations of the social and moral potential of the city to give form and shape to household needs and desires. Beyond the well-trodden policy lines of secure tenure and appropriate dwelling sizes, he argues for the need for the development of housing settlements for the poor that ‘create conditions in which people can live lives they have reason to value’ (p. 1).