Informal Cities: The Future of Global Urbanism

3 units

This seminar will research the morphology & the morphogenesis of the Informal City as it evolves to be an integral phenomenon of global urbanism, and the corresponding economic, social, architectural and urban theory. Today, one billion people live in informal cities (36% of the world's population) and this is expected to grow another one billion over the next 30 years. As it is currently evolving, the informal city is an urban phenomenon set up within the planned city's territory and increasingly an integral part of it -- often comprising up to 75% of the city and one of the elements of urban morphology that shapes city design. Thus, it is no longer possible to accept a concept of the informal city that centered on negative parameters (ghettos/slums/poverty/crime, etc.), but there is a need to find sustainable spatial solutions to integrate these settlements into the formal urban/architectural tissue leading to the dissolution of urban and symbolic boundaries between the informal areas and formal districts. To this end, the course will review various architecture and urban strategies and projects of informal urbanism in Asia, Africa and South America supported with an optional field trip to South America favelas/barrios in order to define a place of action for architects and urbanists in the informal city. The course fulfills the Urban Issue elective requirement for the M.Arch degree. Undergraduate enrollment is allowed by arrangement with the instructor.