Informal architecture/s

Rice, Louis

Abstract

This chapter is a critical examination of the architecture/s of informal cities. Informal cities will house the majority of the world’s urban population by the middle of this century. The scale of this new development is unprecedented in its scale, every week another million people arrive to set up home in the informal cities of the world. Each year, it is the equivalent of building a city the combined size of London, Paris, Rome, New York, Tokyo, Beijing and Sydney. Despite its superabundance, there is relatively little research on the architectural qualities of these settlements. The paper sets out some of the defining characteristics of informality from an architectural perspective, and some lessons learned that could be deployed in ‘formal’ architecture.

Citation

Rice, L. (2015). Informal architecture/s. In L. Rice, & D. Littlefield (Eds.), Transgression: Towards an Expanded Field of Architecture, 87-101. Routledge

• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2015
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 87-101
• Book Title: Transgression: Towards an Expanded Field of Architecture
• ISBN: 9781138818910
• Keywords: architecture, informal cities, urban design, tactics, processual
• Publisher URL: https://www.routledge.com/Transgression-Towards-an-expanded-field-of-architecture/Rice-Littlefield/p/book/9781138818927