The informal city and the future of our cities: towards a manifesto
ISSN: 2631-6862
Article publication date: 28 December 2020
Issue publication date: 23 June 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The New Urban Agenda has catalyzed discussion across academia and practice on how to responsibly position ourselves as key players in the making of the future of our cities. With questions such as what is the right to the city? Who has those rights? What is a city? What is formal and who defines informal? These questions may prompt a need for departure from, or at least a reconsideration of the narrative surrounding formal and informal urbanism. This paper presents a pedagogical approach to addressing these and other questions within the framework of the new agenda. It reviews pedagogical approaches to understanding and learning to design within an informal context. It also foregrounds the process with the theoretical framing of Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language and Timeless way of Building as lenses through which to understand and identify common languages and intersections across the global spectrum of representations of informal urbanism. It then outlines the resultant process and products of a one-week intensive master-class and design charette of international scholars and students focusing on the Informal City.
Design/methodology/approach
It reviews pedagogical approaches to understanding and learning to design within an informal context. It also foregrounds the process with the theoretical framing of Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language and Timeless way of Building as lenses through which to understand and identify common languages and intersections across the global spectrum of representations of informal urbanism. It then outlines the resultant process and products of a one-week intensive master-class and design charette of international scholars and students focusing on the Informal City.
Findings
The paper conclusively presents new nomenclature for informality that strives to shift the semantic lens from its current negative connotations to more productive, proactive and positive ones. It also presents an Informal City Manifesto, a call to arms of theoretical framing of how we think about the formal informal divide.
Research limitations/implications
The paper, in part, outlines the results of a single studio with a small student number. Although diverse in its composition the student body is small.
Originality/value
This new framing could potentially allow us to best leverage lessons and mitigate challenges of the informal city condition, as our human settlements continue to urbanize.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was part of a larger initiative hosted by the Royal Institute of British Architects, (RIBA) Education program in June 2017. Special thanks to RIBA education director David Gloster for the initiative and his support. Financial support was also provided by the Commonwealth Association of Architects (CAA). This studio was supported by and co-taught with Professor Julio Davila director, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London and Harshavardhan Jatkar, PhD candidate, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London. Special thanks to the talents of all student participants: Andrés Antolín Sánchez, Bachelor in Architecture, IE School of Architecture and Design; Deiene González Uriarte, graduate architect, IE School of Architecture and Design; Etta Madete, graduate architect at M.K Architects, University of Nairobi; Herman Castaneda, MA student, International Architecture Regeneration and Development, Oxford Brookes University; Judit Calveras Casanovas, Bachelor in Architecture, Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) - Polytechnic University of Catalonia; Nada Nafeh, Alum, Department of Architecture, the American University in Cairo; Tashon D. Lewis, BA in Architecture, Caribbean School of Architecture, University of Technology, JA.
Citation
Mostafa, M. (2021), "The informal city and the future of our cities: towards a manifesto", Archnet-IJAR, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 416-433. https://doi.org/10.1108/ARCH-04-2020-0063
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited