CHAPTER 3 UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF URBAN INFORMALITY
3.2 Defining principles of urban informality
3.2.2 Principle of Emergence: a concept that defines the
To Architects and urban designers who have no background experience of urban informality, it seems to be an organic structure with no hierarchy and no logical flow.
Everything seems to be in it for itself but if one takes the time to understand it, the dynamic patterns of use (that designers are trained to pick up) start to emerge and these patterns start to break down the logic of urban informality. According to (Lara, 2010: 24) even though some (if not most) of the buildings and spaces within the
Illustration 3.2 - A picture of a stair path before and after community members built the sewer paths and stairs to access their homes. Source: informalsettlements.blogspot.com
informal urban context have not been designed by urban design professionals – they should not be perceived as having no logic; they simply follow a different logic of their own which is defined by the people and lie outside the ‗contemporary‘ dictionary for the elites called ‗emergence‘.
According to Hamdi (2004: xvii), appropriate developments (large or small) within the informal urban context stem from the understanding and correct interpretation of the common practices created by the people on the ground and these adopted practices have an immediate impact within the local context and the greater more global community socially and on the built environment. The intended developments or built form than have to adopt the concept of ‗emergence‘, a pattern recognised in informal cities everywhere – and this concept entails the resolution of problems by drawing on simple and local elements that the greater number of people within that community have the opportunity to make a physical or social impact rather than being sourced from one elite or single brain (ibid.: xvii). This concept of emergence than starts suggest a flexible built form that is able to accommodate the adaptation process implemented by the people on a small scale that might affect the social and physical dynamics of the bigger picture. The most critical aspects of this concept is to find the right balance where the generated built form does not grow to a point that it inhibits the freedom of the people in the informal urban context and transform the informal dynamic context into a static, self-serving formal structure (ibid.: xviii).
For the concept of emergence to work, the built form has to be loosely defined, almost set up like a skeletal structure in which the people in the informal urban context will add their own ideas, or what Hamdi (ibid.) defines as ―sophisticated behaviour‖, over the period of the structure‘s existence. This sets up a built environment of
‗possibilities' where the built form is able to evolve and accommodate and facilitate unexpected changes within the informal context.
The built environment in the favelas located in Brazil is based on this concept of emergence and evolution. People living in this context took Le Corbusier‘s domino scheme and adapted it into their settlements to create multistory units that utilised their scarce land due to its compact and flexible nature (refer to Illustration 3.3). This came about because the people who built the modern Brazilian homes designed by Lucio Costa and Niemeyer and other modernist architects of that time were the same people who lived in the favelas (informalsettlements.blogspot.com).
This coincidental adaptation of a formally derived built form concept stuck in the favelas due to the fact that the incremental philosophy in the informal urban context can be applied in to the domino concept. According to Sheuya (2007) infrastructure in the informal urban context ―is divided in two stages: start up (the first shelter) and the successive transformation phases (improvements).‖ In the first stage people use their initial capital to fund a new project and afterwards (the second phase) people accumulate additional funds as they grow to add new additions or make changes to the initial structure (informalsettlements.blogspot.com). This evolution process sometimes goes one step further in the sub division of units to change single use units to multiple or mixed-use buildings.
Illustration 3.3- Domino Scheme by Le Corbusier (Left) and unit under construction (Right) in Favela Roshinia in Rio de Janeiro that follows the domino concept. (Source: http://
informalsettlements.blogspot.com )
Emergence (from its inception) is even applicable to the informal settlements that lie outside of the city (refer to Illustration 3.4). In these informal settings Drummond (1981) described the evolutionary process in three phases;
Phase 1 - Implantation of precarious shelters.
Phase 2 - Transformation of shelters to sheds.
Phase 3 - Solid construction.
This implementation and adaptation process is also applicable to the informal urban context in the city where street traders undergo a similar process to find their ground within the city. What this shows is that urban formality is spontaneous in its inception but the evolution process can (to some extent) be laid out in its structural growth. The limit of this evolution process, especially in the cities, is only limited by its edges or
―Edge Node‖ and this process is formally defined as ―the creation of a new informal settlement or structure that creates a centrality which is in turn connected to a main road adjacent to the formal city…From this newly created node, the edge will start expanding outward until it finds an edge condition that would limit its growth‖
(informalsettlements.blogspot.com).
Illustration 3.4- Didier Drummond‘s illustration of phases of evolving consolidation. Phase one
―implantation precarious shelters‖ phase two ―transformation of shelters to sheds" phase three ―solid construction‖ source: (informalsettlements.blogspot.com)