John F.C. Turner is a well-known pioneer in housing and community empowerment and has promoted the cause of community self-management through his field-work, teaching and publications for over 40 years. Trained as an architect, he became convinced of the capabilities of self-builders during his work in squatter settlements in Peru (1957-65), and subsequently with low-income communities in other developing countries. He used the interpretations of these experiences while teaching and writing at MIT, and later at the Development Planning Unit and the Architectural Association in London and in presentations at international conferences. His philosophy, concepts and methods on housing and community development contributed to the creation of a new paradigm and strongly influenced a generation of students who went on to practice as community activists, consultants and as staff at development institutions, including the World Bank. In 1977, he and his wife and partner Beth Turner set up AHAS, a housing advisory service. Their experience through 1989 laid the foundation for Tools for Community Regeneration (TCR), now providing a customizable database and website for local initiatives. He now acts as a consultant to TCR and at the Max Lock Centre, University of Westminster, London on a method for recording and disseminating case examples and the adaptation of TCR to LDCs.
Born in London in 1927,I was schooled in England and trained as an architect. I have worked mainly in the field of housing. Reoriented by working with self-managing home and neighbourhood builders in Peru (1957 -65), I have learnt that what matters in housing are the relationships between people, activity and place. Before leaving South America, I prepared a publication and the script of a documentary film showing how much people can do than can be done for them, with so much less when free to decide and act for themselves. Opportunities followed to observe and interpret the same facts in other contexts, to write at Joint Center for Urban Studies in Cambridge, Mass, and then teach at MIT (1965-73), subsequently in London at the Architectural Association and the Development Planning Unit, University College (1974-83). Between 1984 and 1988, my partner Beth and I tried to set up a "tools for community building" service; this failed but led to the preparation of Habitat International Coalitionšs project to the UN International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, 1987. In 1989 we moved to Hastings, a South Coast town, where I volunteered help with what has become the Hastings (local development) Trust. The Trust now hosts Tools for Community Regeneration, which is being piloted locally as a precedent for adaptation to other contexts.
Building Civil Society, current initiatives in voluntary action. Charities Aid Foundation, Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent UK, 1998.
• Turner, John F.C. "Tools for Building Community, an examination of 13 hypotheses," in Habitat International, Vol.20, No.3, 1996.
Editor, Charles Choguill, Pergamon Press, Oxford.
• Turner, John F.C. "Barriers, Channels and Community Control," in David Cadman and Geoffrey Payne, editors, The Living City,
towards a sustainable future, Routledge, London, 1990.
• Turner, John F.C. "Issues and Conclusions," in Turner, Bertha, editor, Building Community, a Third World Case Book, Building
Communities Books and Habitat International Forum for Habitat International Coalition, Berlin and London, 1988.
• Turner, John F.C. "From Central Provision to Local Enablement, new directions for housing policies" in Glaeser, B., Learning from
China? Development and environment in Third World Countries, Allen and Unwin, London, 1983.
• Turner, John F.C. "Housing in Three Dimensions, terms of reference for The Housing Question redefined," in World Development,
Vol.6 No.9-10, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1978,
• Turner, John F.C. "The Value of Housing," in John F C Turner, Housing By People, towards autonomy in building environments,
Marion Boyars, London 1976 (Pantheon Books, .New York, 1977).
• Turner, John F.C. "Two Ways of Planning, legislative limits and executive lines," in the Town and Country Planning Journal, Vol.44
No.5, London 1976.
• Turner, John F.C. "The Fits and Misfits of People's Housing (illustrated.)," in the Royal Institute of Architects' Journal, Vol. No.
London,1974.
• Turner, John F.C. "Housing as a Verb," in Turner, John F C and Fichter, Robert, Freedom to Build, Macmillan, New York, 1972.The
Reeducation of a Professional, op. cit.
• Turner, John F.C. "The Squatter Settlement, Architecture That Works, (illustrated)," in Pidgeon, Monica and Bell, Gwen, The
Architecture of Democracy, a special issue of Architectural Design, Vol.8, No.38, London 1968.
• Turner, John F.C. "Barriers and Channels for Housing in Modernizing Countries (illustrated)," in the Journal of the Amercian Institute
of Planners, Washington DC, 1967.