Informal architecture is the dominant mode of urbanization in rapidly growing and industrializing cities worldwide. In Delhi, the city with the largest population in India has half of its residents living in informal settlements. Lagos, with a population of over 22 million, also has 60% of its residents living in informal settlements. This pattern is also observed in Cairo, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, and other cities in the global south that face similar challenges of inequality and housing shortages. As their population grows and urbanization progresses, the exploration of informal architecture schemes to address the demand for affordable housing and basic services will only increase. While the primary purpose of design is to provide structure, lessons from informal architecture offer insights into how architects can respond to such schemes.
Typically, an architect's job lies within the formal realm. It involves creating a structure where there is a lack thereof, finding solutions for problems, giving shape and form to contexts that are lacking, and fixing what is considered broken. However, informality challenges this perspective of design. It manifests as ephemeral and transient spatial forms that continuously negotiate and adapt, often appearing chaotic. As cities grow rapidly and struggle to adapt to change, informality becomes pervasive, expanding the boundaries of architecture beyond physical enclosures. It encompasses spatial, social, cultural, traditional, and urban evolutionary processes. No matter how well-planned a city is, informal spaces such as homes, shops, and public areas will inevitably emerge, shaping urbanism itself. Therefore, it is necessary to take a micro perspective on informality and understand the design needs that arise from it.
The qualities of informality are not limited to its physical manifestations but also encompass its underlying spatial, social, cultural, traditional, and urban evolutionary processes. Rather than an absence of rules, informality represents negotiation, trial and error, and continuous updating over time - Felix Heisel & Bisrat Kifle
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Adaptive Reuse
One key feature of informal architecture is the tendency to be multifunctional. Architects such as Lucien Kroll found that mono-functional units of informality remain unused. He highlighted the behavior of informality as complex adaptive systems, in which dynamic and unpredictable patterns of self-organization emerge within certain levels of resilience or vulnerability. Designing for informality should mirror this behavior. shaping space and places with the tendency to morph and accommodate multiple programs, even those beyond the purview of the architect. On an urban level, Jacobs’s (1961) theory rallied against the monofunctional, top-down, tree-like thinking of modernist master planning to accommodate informality. pointing out the importance of sidewalk life, pedestrian connectivity, and diversity to allow informal forms such as street markets, settle, adapt, and negotiate settlements with the formal
Informal patterns developed as social foundations rather than physical bases
Informal social capital serves as the basis for informal architecture. Public spaces in informal settlements, where the residents themselves create their own spaces, not only reflect their needs but also their identity. By involving the community in the design process instead of relying solely on professionals, the informal process can reveal valuable insights about the community responsible for these spaces. The residents' social cues and communal identity directly influence the creation of these spaces, imbuing them with social values that can inspire the development of physical spaces. Designers can replicate this approach by collaborating directly with the community, leveraging their skills and ideas to create social public spaces that lay the groundwork for informal architecture.
User Assemblage
Designing for informality also involves recognizing the role that design can play in a scheme where people have the agency to create their own spaces. In this context, the role of design is limited to creating elements that users can assemble to form spaces and places.
For example, at the urban design scale, a street is not simply a collection of individual things. It is the interconnectedness of buildings, houses, shops, signs, police officers, shoppers, cars, street vendors, rules, sidewalks, goods, and trolleys that make up the street. The design of structures to be easily assembled and disassembled reflects the informal nature of these spaces. It allows for flexibility, transience, and the ability to adapt to the user's needs, appearing and disappearing in urban space while taking on new forms every day.
Infrastructural Design to Guide the Pattern & Development of Informal Settlements
Informal settlements are located in areas that lack some or all basic social infrastructure, such as piped water, sewerage, good road networks, and electricity. Upgrading an informal settlement involves providing these basic infrastructure and services, which can improve the quality of life for residents. However, it is important to consider the impact of the upgrade on low-income households. The upgrade has the potential to increase land and house prices, which may restrict affordable housing access for these households. Research has shown that basic infrastructure such as piped water, power, healthcare, and communal accessibility are the most important facilities for informal settlement residents. Strategically providing these facilities through participatory design can directly impact the growth pattern of informal settlements.
Incremental Production of Urban Space
One key contrast with a formal construction process is that the size of each increment is much smaller, and there are a greater number of adaptations. Informal settlements, which are characterized by emergent morphology and spatiality, are produced through these incremental adaptation processes. Construction in these settlements is often makeshift, but there is always a spatial logic and often significant levels of design ingenuity as different forms of livelihood are supported through design and construction. While each increment represents a form of upgrading, without the constraints of formal design and planning regulations, these adaptations can escalate into slum conditions. Designing for informality involves considering the ways in which residents extend and renovate buildings at micro-spatial scales, and identifying typical increments such as 'extend', 'attach', 'replace', 'divide', 'connect', and 'infill'.
