Atlas of Informal Settlement: Understanding Self-Organized Urban Design

Dovey, Kim; Oostrum, Matthijs Van; Shafique, Tanzil; Chatterjee, Ishita; Pafka, Elek

ISBN 10: 1350295043 / ISBN 13: 9781350295049

Published by Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2023

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 18396118043

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Atlas of Informal Settlement: Understanding Self-Organized Urban Design
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350295043
• ISBN 13: 9781350295049
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

While often seen as unplanned or spontaneous, informal settlement is better understood as a mode of production: a co-evolution of architecture, urban design and planning that embodies informal rules and shapes urban development.

The Atlas of Informal Settlement is a comparative study of the spatial logic of informal settlement based on mapping and analysing the evolution of urban form (morphogenesis) in 51 contemporary settlements across the planet – the first of its kind and a fundamental change in thinking for urban studies and built environment professionals.

Each of the 51 case studies uses maps and aerial photographs to examine key stages of development, showing how informal settlement adapts to different contexts of political economy, topography, culture, climate and land tenure; revealing a complex range of actors from settlers and states to land mafias and pirate developers. It demonstrates the range of design processes and formal outcomes; how the informal becomes formalized and vice versa. Interspersed with short chapters introducing key theoretical concepts, the Atlas shows how such practices may or may not produce 'slums', and how settlement is already a form of 'upgrading'.

Informal settlement is the primary mode of production of affordable housing and neighbourhood infrastructure within cities of the Global South; with detailed mapping and profiling of 51 settlements this book shows how such urban morphologies emerge in terms of architecture, urban design and planning.

About the Authors

Kim Dovey is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Melbourne.

Matthijs van Oostrum currently works with UN-Habitat, Nairobi.

Tanzil Shafique teaches at the University of Sheffield and is an Associate of the Urban Institute. He is the Convenor of the the Southern Theorising Group (STingG), as well as co-leads Sheffield Design Lab. Tanzil's research looks at informal cities and their adaptation to climate change, participatory spatial practices and decolonial/pluriversal thought. He recently won half a million pounds from UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for a wetland revitalisation project. He also runs Platform for Housing Justice, a grassroot activism infrastructure. He is co-author of Off-Grid Toilets (2022) and Atlas of Informal Settlements (2023).

Ishita Chatterjee is Associate Professor at the Jindal School of Art and Architecture, O.P. Jindal Global University, India.

Elek Pafka is Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning and Urban Design at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on the relationship between material density, urban form and the intensity of urban life, as well as methods of mapping the 'pulse' of the city. He has participated in research on transit orientated development, functional mix and walkability. He has co-edited the book Mapping Urbanities: Morphologies, Flows, Possibilities.