Informal settlements

One billion people, a sixth of the world’s population, live in informal (“squatter”) settlements. By 2030, the number will double. Despite the rapid growth of informal settlements throughout the world—Khayelitsham, Cape Town, South Africa; Orangi, Karachi, Pakistan; Sultanbeyli, Istanbul, Turkey; and Heliópolis, São Paulo, Brazil—architects and planners have played only minor roles in the policies, development, design, and improvement of these environments. In particular, inequities in health and well-being continue to grow wider between places with highly-advanced healthcare systems and these settlements. This studio, therefore, explored the political, cultural, economic, spatial, tectonic, and aesthetic phenomena of informal settlements: How and why do informal settlements arise?