The word "hacienda" in Spanish (and by extension in other countries) comes from the Latin "facienda" = things that must be done. It is a small estate for extended family living and working at agricultural, mechanical, and/or scholarly tasks. "2000" means of course the Twenty-first Century.
Hacienda-2000 follows the principle for future world society first presented in Alfred de Grazia's Kalos: What is to be Done with Our World? (1968) The guiding principal is "Demosmosis" (from the Greek, demos= people and osmose= unifying admixture of elements), by which is meant that mass events ultimately capture the elite: in economics, what can be provided that is specifically of value-in-use to the poor will find its way to the rich. This economic principle is much superior ethically and efficiently to the "trickle down" principle of laissez-faire or even welfare-state capitalism-socialism. (The trickle-down principle assigns the poor to a snail's pace, waiting for the rich to cast off their worn things and to expand some form of production that may have been useful for the rich but is fundamentally impossible for the poor.) The basic Hacienda design is for the poor, but can be graduated upwards through one after another level of wealth. It is the best design for the way of life that the rich need, as much as the poor.
The FIP Model of Hacienda-2000 is one of the series of Hacienda-2000 models, adapted to particular ethnic and cultural circumstances. In this case, the model is for the PEOPLE of FIP, and by extension throughout the Mediterranean climatic world in Europe, Africa, Central and South America, Southern U.S.A., and South Asia.
Hacienda-2000 is called a Lo-Hi-Tech system to correct a universal error in the concept of what is hi-technology or hi-tech. Logically, hi-technology should mean a process that combines human-material-technical resources in accomplishing a task according to the highest and latest standards of human sciences, material sciences, and technical sciences. That is, there is a lo-tech and a hi-tech method of digging a ditch as well as sending a spaceship to Mars, of building a hut and a skyscraper. Hacienda-2000-FIP can be regarded as a hi-tech system for solving housing-work requirements, constructed either by a large-scale building company or by of poor people with scant materials, little outside help, and few tools. Here the poor person’s occupancy model is described.
Proposed is a six-unit single-story structure in hexagonal form with an up-front need of about E30,000.00 of financing from private or public sources to be used for land use permit and long lease, utilities, materials, and construction. Soft capital investment (investors, designs, engineering, architectural, general supervision, etc.) will be paid over time after completion and occupancy at a total cost not to exceed 12% of actual itemized and receipted costs (E3,600.00). Total elapsed time: drawings, permits, utilities laid, construction might be estimated to take 3 months from initial contract to occupancy. Several haciendas could be erected in a settlement in the same time period. Most of the manual work could be done by the prospective occupants. The site of the single Hacienda should be in or on the edge of an existing village or wherever it can be connected with light, water, drainage, and telephone at reasonable costs. These costs should not exceed E100.00at the property-boundary line.
The Hacienda is a hexagonal structure on an artificial or natural earthen rise of less than one acre, or 15 ars, with six modules or apartments or "petals" of about 60 square meters each, with each module serving as a residence or workshop, with a central fish-pond to which six rear doors lead and with a single two-car garage dug into the mound below or using one of the modules, or set up adjoining under a cover. Each module has an obtuse-angled front with a door on one of its two front sides and a large window on the other. A circular walk surrounds the hexagon and each module has an arched door leading out onto the walk. The garage houses a collective tool-shop for the hacienda, space for a half-ton van-pickup and a passenger car.
Each module is to be partly furnished within the cost-framework above-mentioned. It will have a thoroughly simple and functional bathroom and kitchen (with central floor drains in tile and open shelving and pull curtains, for example). Each petal has five exterior walls, and interior walls for the bathroom and utility room, but with only a partial wall for the kitchen. It is tallest and widest at the front and then diminishes both in width and height as it moves toward the back. The back end (about 4.5 meters) exits out of the kitchen and utility closet into the tiny fenced rear garden, a circular walk, and a pond. The large end culminates in an obtuse-angled app. 10.4 m outer wall with large sliding door (in three separate overlaid parts: wood, screen, window glass) on one side and large window (or another door, depending on costs) on the other, exiting upon the circular path around the hacienda and descending at any two convenient points (app.180 degrees apart) to paths or roads below or alongside the property. From a formal point of view, you may have one household or 6 households. The hacienda concept, however, calls for a single owner-manager as the norm, who builds his community around his needs. This allows great flexibility in assigning modules over time, and brings responsible, accountable decision-making. A typical hacienda in the Near East might accommodate an extended family of father-mother, two boys, a girl and utilities room, two grandparents, uncle-aunt, two worker-boarders or a workshop-utility room. Also a hacienda could be afforded by a village FIP owner who wants to rent several rooms to tourists. A part-time resident from another region could fit different combinations of friends and family into the house, giving permanent or temporary free residence of one of the apartments to an FIP household as caretaker.
Lowest possible cost for good materials and always the choice of the least expensive and simplest solution. Let all taps, fittings, pipes, electrical wires, shelves, etc. hang out. "No-shame construction."
Let nothing be old (as a test of the scheme, though in practice some things might be obtained used.) Actually savings on purchase of 6 of all articles would be considerable and allow better fitting of furnishings to spaces around. In a hacienda village or villages, the constructors could obtain practically everything except personal objects at large savings.
Building foundation is a single poured concrete form (with a covering of mosaic flagstone)on a flat surface of a circle 35 meters in diameter. The concrete pours over the sewer, water, pond drain, electric and cable pipes, which are all carried in one tube.(Or sewer pipe can be separate.)
The roof of the structure will be unified and slant downward from 4 meters height in front to 3 meters height at rear. Roof made of ceramic tile of local manufacture exposed as it rests on beams,or of undular hellenite pressed cement or of undular metal on thick insulation (which serves as exposed ceiling (paintable) inside. Tiles or metal plates are set to conduct water from front of structure to the rear pond with a pitch of 1 meter downwards from front to rear.
Extend roof beyond front walls all around to give shade, protection from elements, and beauty. The roof will extend in a circular shape beyond the outer walls of the structure to midway of the path around the building. Also, the roof will extend in the rear of the modules to where they will empty their waters directly into the fish pond or cistern pond at the center of the hexagon. If hellenite or aluminum is used, manufacturers of roofing can supply pieces that are transparent that can be used for skylights, one to each petal.
Walls: cement blocks, rough brick (alternatively acoustic-insulated plywood; alternatively, acoustically insulated composition boards). Front walls, poured waist-high cement, heat insulation and plywood. Or alpha blocks. Or least costly of all, a single line of local bricks, front-bolstered by local stone and mud.
Windows, one large rear by rear door, one very large at front; waist-high, draw-draped, slide-opening as well as slide-opening front and rear door. Both front and rear windows should have screens (removable). A second door instead of window for the front side can be considered.
Front door can be a three-layer boxed slide arrangement, bolted to the front wall, with a wood door, wood screen door, and window door. Rear door could be same or less expensive. Windows should be the same. The lock can be a bolt on the inside with a leather strap for pulling open or shut, and a padlock and strap for the outside.
Grape or bougainvillea, etc can grow on the roof from the central or outside walks. They should be planted right away. A different color flowering vine for each module is possible.
Toilets basic healthy Indian (Turkish) type, direct pipe flush (eliminating flush box and mechanism).
Water taps simple. Water should be dipped from a large tub instead of turning on and off taps.
Baths in corner tub and water and shower from wall taps, pipes exposed. Plumbing pipes carried into house to the points of use, left exposed and painted. Also bathtub should have railings.(Sit-tub, if constructed at low cost, is to be preferred.) Hang-on rails, exercise rails (bathroom, back garden).
Bathroom simple, large, water-splashable everywhere and drainable by central floor (sewer) drain. Toilet drain is separate.
Double aluminum wash tub for utility room. Set up 1 washer and 1 dryer in the utility room of the module that is going to be the garage and general service-storage room. One 50-liter hot water heater by electricity.
Double cut stone or metal sinks in bathroom and kitchen space.
Provided for each kitchen: 1 three-burner gas stove with oven, connected via central pipe around fish pond and led to a large compressed gas container set up 40 meters from house. One refrigerator. Counters and shelves.
Individual gas or electric heaters on wheels for use in any space.
Electric plugs (1 k, 1 bath, 1 dining area, 2 front) and insulated wires or piping exposed along floor.
Solar panel assist to central electrical input, if possible.
Single TV national and satellite antenna connected to all units.
One telephone jack in every module.
Shelving open everywhere, of simple wood unpainted, ten inch depth: kitchen, utility, bathroom, bedroom alcove and main room, with many hooks in all places. Floor to ceiling. By bed alcove, place 4 ten-foot rods three feet apart for clothes hanging at shoulder height, with shelves continued above. Varied in height as they run along to allow over-sizes and bric-a-brac. Drapery rods and draw drapes to cover shelves and room spaces on occasion, these to be created in local designs and with local woolens.
Plenty of hanging hooks everywhere.
Queen-sized bed-box with pull drapes on all sides. Mattress in two sections with fiber or foam filling. Drapes should be highly personalized by large choice up front or by owner-arranged fabrication.
Lamps all flexible, light, small, powerful where needed.
Rear tiny private garden high-fenced with chicken wire, leading to walk around pond community space. Center pool for fish or turtles, with fountain, or cistern. Marble or granite sculpture in the middle. Possible fountain jet.
Single mail box toward external exit-entrance, 6 large 2x2x2 ft. compartments to accommodate packages.
Foliage niches between petal fronts to permit varied appearance with different bushes, small trees, varied flowers, sculptures, etc..
Hacienda is to be classified as a residential structure, with allowable personal businesses. However, considerable in and out movement of people and supplies should be possible at any time of day or night without disturbing neighbors.
Wherever possible corners of interior and exterior furnishings are to be rounded to prevent sharp bumps.
Color scheme to be chosen varies inside and outside each module. Colored whitewash. Initially, each petal interior will be painted a pastel of a different tint -- off-white, pink, yellow, blue, green in appropriate shades.
(Not to be provided for in cost budget: Utensils complete and in stainless steel. Set for 4.Tough inexpensive pots and dishes. Folding chairs and table for eating, if occupant desires. Bed. Etc.)
Proposed is a construction system surrounding and supporting a typical contemporary work-living system, combining a multi-option work setting, from a (LO-TECH) shepherding extended family or village group with stores, to high technology work-residence, for example: all-phase micro-publishng, home word-processing, accounting, consulting, mail-order, private school of any and all levels and kind of specialization, photography, artisanship, art studio, decentralized data assembly and analysis, and see below) plus residence, for several households under one head; potentially the construction is module fabricated, but invariably built to maximize use of electronics, the communications revolution and preferred new life-work and life-styling while minimizing costs. (Actually the habitat concept is ancient -- e.g. shepherding, home-farming, French mas, Spanish hacienda, Roman villa, early cottage industry, early factory system as in Alsace, England, USA and elsewhere.) For technologically advanced operation, even in a disadvantaged culture, Hacienda is highly suitable. For example, a professional model financed and occupied by the owner-manager-resident, whose job employs a computer system, would present numerous economies and better living, individually and communally. Structures are space-use-flexible; functional; furnished innovatively; convertible by screens, slides, elevating mechanisms; innovative ingress and egress; innovative features in plumbing, heating, electrics, telephonics, luminescence, materials, wastage handling, cleansing, and insulating. The total design is aesthetically pleasing and offers various possibilities for individual decoration and inexpensive adaptation. Numerous basic uses are facilitated, and one use can graduate into another, as for example when children move from home, convenient substitution of lodgers may follow.
¤ Large immediate familyPresent and future eco-social trends call for a total revamping of the basic living system. The mythical traditional family is fast losing its contours, among rich and poor alike, while the majority of society needs to have a sociologically relevant and satisfying habitat. Hacienda-2000 addresses these problems with a solution, valid for most of the basic patterns of upcoming existence, for rich and poor alike. Hacienda-2000 lets the poor and rich understand each other, by its perceptive and universal solutions. Hacienda corrects the dispersion of kindred intellectual and creative types, as well as family members, which discourages greatly mutual access for emotional, mental, and social support, part-time and full-time. Hacienda corrects bureaucratic trends in government, companies, universities, and media must be countered by new coping modes of work-living habitat. There is an exponential growth of decentralized service and production units, profiting from the revolution in communications electronics. Hacienda-2000 abandons ever-larger versions of nuclear single family households, full of dubious gimmicks, extravagant furnishings and displays, and dreams of human interaction that rarely take place. It makes way for the essential and most enjoyable activities of life. Allows for full community without compromises of individuality and privacy.
Hacienda-2000 as a self-controlled communal residence is also designed to be a unit of a settlement. Its hexagonal multi-household-workplace form (like that of the honey bee wax cells) conserves and yet allows ample space and can be duplicated a number of times to establish a full community. Because the hexagonal Hacienda is already a tiny community, it can provide its members with proto-communal values (intimacy, family, work-cooperation, etc. that can be changed to fit the aging and mobility of the residents) inside the cell, while it can add its liveliness and strength to the adjoining haciendas. It is a unique way of allowing a complex mix of human elements and vocations and age groups and social types within the same settlement. The inability to supply this functioning community with a sense of community is at the bottom of many serious urban problems all over the world. A collectivity of individual menages, a Hacienda-2000 village might consist deliberately of plural cases of all models, such as thirty varied haciendas on 50 hectares with a population of 400 persons. What this would demonstrate is that many different kinds of people and life-situations can dwell in a community with acceptable harmony, mutual satisfaction, vibrant neighborhood interest, and concomitant social education when the human interactional basic nodes are healthy. This is a most important consideration and advance. The modern urban and suburban dweller is like an atomic nucleus stripped of its encircling particles or about to lose the last of them, leaving the person or nuclear family anxiously exposed, socially alienated, ready to flee rather than confront their surroundings; so we get the host of problems of modern living, urban sprawl, vast indebtedness, all the problems of over-use of the automobile and truck, hostilities, crimes, drugs, hugely costly wastes of time in chauffeuring, commuting, shopping, abandonment of home by children, by father or mother worker, by the old going into rest homes, unusably large homes by the millions designed for another age and even then badly (because they contributed to the very problems that they now suffer from), by continual changing of neighborhood and their deterioration and takeover by reasonably disgruntled minorities, etc. It may also be noted that the Hacienda settlement plan and ground pattern facilitates police security measures to prevent escapes or to keep strife from spreading. Fire protection is figured from small vehicles stationed at one or more of the parks. Earthquakes of higher density are likely to cause structural weakening and collapse. The light weight of falling objects in the Hacienda-2000 is unlikely to cause grave harm. In falling, the light roof would create its own airspace underneath for survival; dig-out would be simplified. The hi-tech model of Hacienda builds in state-of-the-art telecommunications and multi-media computer revolutions. Provides range of self-services going beyond the community washing machine. Provides garage space as needed, but basically aims at 2 spaces in one of the modules if desired, for a passenger car and a pick-up truck, serving 14 people on the average, looking to the energy and raw materials and time-conserving life style of the future. An important advantage is the vocational efficiency of Hacienda-2000. Space design and built-ins, as well as the total concept, are meant to expedite increasingly common ways of work. Not alone laborers and security personnel will find their collective needs satisfied. It will be use-efficient and comfortable, also for busy early-retired teachers, the working para-professional or professional single parent, the partners in an intellectual business (the many combinations of independent intelligentsia), the consultant or real estate agent or many other types of businessperson who can work as well or better in this decentralized setting away from one's headquarters office. The designs should provide for full installation of state-of-the-art equipment. About one-half of the equipment serves personal and household uses, as well as business use. Representing an investment of probably $15,000 of joint-use equipment (computer systems, fax, phones, multi-media accessories, tape-sound-photo-disc libraries as well as hardprint libraries), the advantage of home-office occupancy is apparent.
The haciendas can be designed in many cost-forms. The idea is to make the hacienda intelligible, desirable, and available to residents as diverse as the people of Bombay or Princeton Township. Numerous financing possibilities open up because of the combining of business and personal finances, and the participation potentially of various persons and corporations or non-profit institutions. Especially in the Mediterranean sector of the European Community and the Middle East, a large need for the Hacienda exists that would interest a large number of private and public financial institutions.
