Improving Makeshift Places: The Architecture and Design of Informal Settlements
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2021
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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Informal urbanism is a non-institutionalized but systematic building practice and a sign of the destabilization of institutions and inefficiency of mainstream building policy in the US and developing countries worldwide. It comes in many forms, but in most cases, “informal” buildings and communities emerge from the absence, insufficiency, or exorbitant cost of dwelling options for low-income populations in conventional public and private housing markets. What I am calling “makeshift” places are the consequence of a series of deteriorating political rights and deficient market initiatives culminating in the maximization of land use and the privatization of city structures. Such profit-driven building policies often accompany environmental degradation, economic segregation, and social exclusion. Informal buildings and makeshift compounds are growing at a faster rate than any other form of urban development. They comprise urban neighborhoods or districts that develop and operate outside the formal control of the state. They are so economically, spatially, and socially integrated with their urban background that most developing cities are unsustainable without them.However, the desire to remove them has persisted and remains linked to the issues of urban imagery, place, and identity. Although the literature includes a considerable amount of research on informal settlements, the notion of “informality” is both stigmatized and under-examined; yet, it remains a dominant way of building and must be included in debates about the future of architecture and urban development. This study will first explore the process of informal building and recognize its consequences for architecture and urban development. It may also serve as a basis to suggest systemic improvements to established, object-oriented, architectural practices that will become a catalyst for achieving more sustainable and equitable cities and communities. We will examine different aspects of residential context, including how the sense of belonging and housing operates with respect to culture, society, and land. It takes architectural of design beyond the impulse to reaffirm individual identity and speaks to dignity and self-determination in ways that shape individuals and enable them to manage the spaces where they live. In this context, informality is architecturally relevant.
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