Informality

What are the possibilities of creating an interaction between the informal and the formal environment?

1. Economics

[Formal] Space for informal economic activities - vendors, sellers, traders, kiosks or recycling.  Transformational, portable, flexible.

2.  Housing

Shanties / favelas - often made from found or re-used materials on vacant or unwanted land.

3.  Appropriation of Space

Taking over empty / abandoned / underutilized public spaces for public gatherings, restaurant / cafe seating, community gardens, art installations, performances, markets (link to economics).

4. Politics / Representation

Are there informal politics?  Can people have their voices heard in informal ways?

5. Education / Learning

Workshops / public enclosed spaces that can be used to pass down cultural lessons / skills.

Problem Statement

I still think it needs work, but here’s where I’m at right now:

Urban migration and the creation of ‘mega-cities’ will not change. These cities - like Mumbai, Dhaka, or Kinshasa – will only get larger, attracting more people from rural areas looking for a better life and opportunities. There are numerous issues when all these new people arrive in the city. Where do they live? Where do they work? How do they transport themselves around a developing city? How do they eat? The problem is that third world cities fail to acknowledge the shortfalls in all of these areas, while still relying on these migrated persons for a functioning city.

The failure of the third world city happens at both the large city scale, and at the scale of the neighborhood and dwelling. Finding a balance between these three entities will be the focus of this research.

Research Questions Ed#2

The issue I’m having with coming up with these research questions, is that they have all been answered in the book I’m reading.  I think what will be ideal for this research, will be speculating on the future.  How far in the future? I have no idea.  50? 100 years?

1. Why will people migrate to urban centers?
2. When cities are already at their maximum saturation of migrants (ie. Mumbai, Hong Kong), how will the city take on even more people?
3. Where might the next onslaught of urban migration take place?
4. In new economic realities, how will the new city look?  Where should the underclasses be located?
5. How might Architects alleviate the issues of temporary / informal housing in the future?  What new styles of living will emerge as the density of cities have to increase in order to accommodate huge populations?

Dharavi Slum Redevelopment

As we are all probably aware, Mumbai contains a huge amount of ‘slums.’  As their existence become more known to the world, the Indian government became more under pressure to do something about it.  This excerpt is from an article from 2006, and the 2010 timeline is no doubt in responses to India hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games.  This is the status from 3 years ago, what’s been happening since then? I have no idea.  Will find, stay tuned. 

Salient features of Dharavi Slum Redevelopment Project:

The five year Dharavi Redevelopment Project worth Rs 8,600 crores (1 crore = 10,000,000) was drawn up on February 4, 2004 in view of the dense combination of commercial and residential structures.

The Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) had come up with a Rs 6,380 crore plan for redeveloping Dharavi slums by 2010.

The center, state and HUDCO are to jointly finance the plan. Global tenders to be floated and project to be implemented by private builders.

Original slumdwellers living prior to January 1, 1995 to be relocated in newly built buildings with 225 sq ft free tenement.

Plan envisages plush residential and commercial complexes, hospitals, schools and colleges.

15 percent of the land is to be reserved for open green spaces and playgrounds.

Private builders to get 4 FSI as incentive for commercial exploitation of remaining land.

Spread over 174 hectares of land Dharavi billed as Asia’s largest slum connects the Island city with suburban Mumbai.

Connects East-West Express Highways also Western, Eastern and Harbour lines of the suburban railway network.

Close to 6 lakh people and 71,000 families live in the slum.

Houses about 5,000 small scale units producing intermediary goods, houses leather tanneries. SSI units here generate Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 crore turnover annually.

Former PM AB Vajpayee had granted Rs 500 crores for developing infrastructure like roads, drainage systems by the BMC.

Random Thoughts #3

In order to get past this feeling of being lost, I think I’ll play a little game with myself.  The last workshop we did in Turkey I really, really enjoyed myself.  We were given a neighbourhood in Istanbul, called Yedikule, given the parameters that made it a not so great neighbourhood (which was its isolation from the city and the waterfront, its predominantly residential use, no local economy) and were told to make it ‘better.’  Better is of course pretty subjective.  Once analyzing the site, we went for 1) connecting it to the water 2) creating a variety of uses 3) creating a local destination 4) making it awesome.

So, here’s the “game” - what made me LOVE this project?

First, I think I just love cities.  I will always be biased towards them.  They have so many more people, so many more things to see, and I think its an environment that needs to be improvement in most cases, and an environment in which more people will be living in the future.  70% of people will live in urban cities in 2050.  I wonder what will happen to cities with such an influx of people.  How are current cities will take said people, I’m sure there won’t be ‘new’ cities built to house them, and what kinds of living situations people will have to adapt to in order to live?  ««topic? - too broad for sure. I’m sure the answer is too simple - slums.  They expand quickly, they have the potential to house a lot of people very quickly with very little resources - however they have a multitude of problems that associate with them.  The reality is our way of life - the rural environment supporting our large, ever expanding cities - will disappear.  Probably not North America any time soon, but surely Asian and African cities will completely change.  All those activities supported by a large rural community will probably have to be accommodated in cities….hence: urban agriculture. I think it might be interesting to be speculative about how a city will look, how people will live, what it will mean to live in a city. »>

Secondly, I really enjoy uncoding an existing urban fabric.  When we were walking the streets of Yedikule, the path to the water front, and the potential of what already existed became very apparent.  Looking at an aerial of the area it was also clear.  I think most neighbourhoods, when you experience them and then look at it in plan a sort of ‘hierarchy’ appears.  Like my neighbourhood (I live in Strathearn, in Edmonton, AB), we basically live in an island between 3 major barriers - Connor’s Road (which only lasts for a few kms) to the west, 85 street to the east and then the North Saskatchewan River Valley to the south.  Inside our neighbourhood is a hiearchy, starting with 95 avenue - our busiest road.  It has commercial strips (small, but they do exist), cultural buildings (many many churches), education facilities, higher density housing (low rise apartments) and public transit service - all characteristics of a busier streets.  Behind that street, north and south, lies the single-family dwellings.  Obvious hierarchy for a small neighbourhood.  I had never really thought about it before, but its something easy to see if you just start to decode the basic elements that exist and comparing them to more obvious high density places.  «<No idea how this could be turned into anything.»»

In the end we created a long pathway connecting the neighbourhood to the waterfront - we developed a number of nodes where people would congregate and travel to, and a canopy element that would give the strip identity.  ««Identity?  In our ever global / transnational / nomadic world how can new society obtain an identity?  Might be interesting…»>

Okay, THE END.  I think I’m still fascinated by the idea that soon most, if not all, people on the planet will live in cities.  This will change them drastically.  It might be neat to look for a city (or cities) that have huge influxes of people.  How do they deal with the issue?  Or do they even - do they ignore the fact that people live in squalor in order to gain what can only economically with such a huge / cheap workforce? I think I should continue with this theme (basically what I was doing before), think about it more, fish out a real and workable topic.