195 research outputs found
Informal Urbanism, city building processes and design responsibility
In the face of multiple, complex and contradictory urban phenomena, and the
impossibility to define one kind of city/one urbanism, the present short contribution
aims to reposition informal urbanism as one of the many existing legitimate
processes that are contributing to city building. Over 1 billion people now
live in ‘slums’ or ‘informal settlements’, a number expected to double by 2030,
making what can be labelled ‘informal urbanism’ globally into the dominant
expression of urban form. In our view, architects should formulate appropriate
answers in the form of a responsive architecture, an architecture of engagement
that has the capacity to reconsider and recalibrate design process within
this contemporary urban condition, which could be called ‘un-designed’ or
even ‘un-designable’. The text uses two vignettes of projects that greatly contributed
to the legitimisation of informality as urbanism. The first, Favela-Bairro
programme in Rio de Janeiro (1994-2006), and the second, PREVI plan in
Lima (1965-75). They entertain a reverse relation with informality. The first
aims at formalising the informal, while the second at ‘informalising’ the formal.
The PREVI, although conceived as a formal plan, is not detached from the
overall logic of informal urbanism; it rather opens a dialogue between self-organisation
and architectural discourse. Although different, both narratives
embraced informality as a sine qua non condition to work with and learn from
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