CENTRAL GLASS INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN COMPETITIONPighouseThe project PIGHOUSE was submitted for consideration for the 2010 Central Glass Architectural Design Competition in Tokyo, Japan. The brief called for new ways to envision the age-old problem of HOUSING. Our entry won the Merit Prize, placing within the top ten of more than six hundred international entries.Architecture or RevolutionAs Cairo hurtles toward revolution, it appears some of the challenges that have plagued Egypt's minority of Coptic Christians have been side-lined in the face of larger issues of democracy. Picking the scab off Le Corbusier's dictum of "ARCHITECTURE OR REVOLUTION", and with Egypt, the country, in sharp focus again, we believe it's time to dust off our project; to raise the possibility of an architecture developed in alignment with a grassroots ethos; to stave off revolution for the Zabbaleen, a community of Coptic Christian garbage collectors living on the fringes of downtown Cairo.Housing for Pigs/Compose for LifeNothing beats the pig's ability to chow down garbage and process in into useful fertilizer whilst fattening into delicious pork. PIGHOUSE suggests that our ideas for HOUSING look beyond notions of mere "accomodation". Housing pigs on the roofs of existing buildings in Manshiyet-Nasr, Cairo, imbues the existing housing with CIVIC and COMMUNAL function, invigorating a host of other activities such as rooftop planting and cultivation.For the past 100 years, the Zabbalee, a group of Coptic Christian garbage collectors in Egypt, have gotten rid of organic waste by feeding it to pigs, that in turn, provide them with food. Across the Nile from the pyramids of Giza, Manshiyet-Nasr, a suburb of Cairo with a thriving Zabbaleen community, pigs were allowed to roam freely until last summer, when the Egyptian Government culled all their pigs out of unfounded fears over the swine flu.In the time since, the Zabbaleen have suffered - gone is their reliable source of cheap protein, and gone is a sustainable way of getting rid of organic waste. All around Cairo, organic trash is piling up on streets and the government is now pushing most of this into landfills. As an affront to what we perceive as a regressive move by the Egyptian government, we propose bringing the pigs back to the settlement, but housing them in a way that is sanitary and supports the collection of pig manure.The roof is already a hotbed of activity in Manshiyet-Nasr, and is used mostly for the sorting and storage of trash. Being in proximity to rooftop sorting areas facilitates the ease with which sorted organic waste is fed to pigs and manure is collected for fertilizer. PIGHOUSE then becomes an extension of Zabbaleen life and community.