Is informal architecture only about the settlements or does it consider the 'art of living' too?

      Is informal architecture only about the settlements or does it consider the 'art of living' too?

Architecture Informality

Prof .Ivan Kucina

Student: Sri Charan Petnikota.

College: DIA, Dessau.

Matrikel no : 4060992

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” 
                                                                                                                  ― Winston Churchill

Most of the dense cities are world’s healthiest places and others are among the worst. Health outcomes are worse among the lower income population in the dense cities and according to statics 30 to 60 percentage are living in such informal settlements. And these is because of the increase in the density of population in the certain area in cities. Dense Cities are developed because of the high density people are there for growth of industry, trade and services. These advantages can reinforce large and economically successful cities but at the same time as health for people remains very poor. For instance, City like Mumbai is very successful but it also has one half of the population lives in high dense informal settlements which may take up small portion of land in the city but there is no provision for water, sanitation, drainage and health care. These case are true in most of metropolitan cities like Cairo, Egypt and cities in Africa. In cities like Nairobi and Karachi more than half the population of the city live in informal settlements that take up only few percent of city’s land area.

High density informal densities have benefits for residents, these settlements are near to their work place. So time and cost of travelling is saved. Dharavi in Mumbai is one biggest slums in the Asia which is located in the center of Mumbai indeed provides easy and time saving  access to work place but not only that ,it also to services in cities that makes city special like theaters , music ,venues ,museums ,libraries , the visual arts, dance ,festivals ,the enjoyment of historic buildings and districts . Dharavi is most popular place to live among low income groups not because of the health advantages but because of economic advantages which result for large earning opportunities there. These people don’t want to move near city periphery where land rates may be cheaper and more space available because it brings high costs in time and money getting to and from work.

Many of the most desirable and expensive residential districts in European cities are also high density area, often with three to six storey buildings. High income groups choose to live in such areas because of the quality of life that is present there. In very high-density settings, the trade-off between indoor space, space for transport, public and private open spaces such as squares, parks and gardens and space for public amenities is complex.

Urban poverty and house transformation effects living condition of the people in informal settlements:

 Urban poverty is usually defined as the lack of income required meeting defined needs such as adequate diet, health care, and education. In spatial terms, urban poverty can be as inadequate access to infrastructure and services.

In real life context, households may move in and out of poverty by organizing and managing the human, physical, financial, natural and social assets at their knowledge. The concept of resistance, which is more dynamic than poverty, is capable of capturing the change processes whereby households move in and out of poverty. And vulnerability is closely linked to the concept of livelihoods that are defined as the means of gaining a living utilizing the different assets as resources.

Inside the structure of livelihoods, how and why owner households transform their houses and the consequences on the settlement structure in the particular context of informal settlements, where the majority of low-income earners live and where legal development control is lacking.

Usually in developing countries like India, Pakistan owner households transform their houses in order to improve their livelihoods including the provision of space for the second generation members to “live”. Housing transformation is also a key strategy for shelter delivery. The housing transformation process is incremental and strongly linked to the assets at the disposition of the households at any particular time.

The main negative effects of housing transformation are excessive densification together with overcrowding and public health problems, occupational health hazards and settlement degradation through road blockades.

“When housing transformations are not guided, their negative effects undermine the livelihoods of the owner households”.

People in informal settlements build their own livelihoods on their resource talents of skills, abilities, land, savings, and equipment by support of formal or informal groups and networks that enable them to sustain a certain level of living standards. The level of supply of resources talents has a bearing not only on how individuals are protected and fed, but also subsequently on their health status. It is observed in the informal settlements that children of parents with more education, skills and abilities are more likely to have better health outcomes .Education also place an important role to maintain health of the family and oneself in the formal settlements.

The health and livelihood concerns of slum dwellers seem to be diverse yet tangled; they are faced with poor access to safe and adequate drinking water, and poor sanitary facilities - which pre-dispose them to illnesses. In the event of illness, they have limited access to appropriate health services due to both physical Health and Livelihood Needs of Residents of Informal Settlements and financial barriers, resulting mainly from limited livelihood opportunities. To address their health concerns focusing on single interventions such as curative or preventive would probably be less effective because the approach would ignore the contentedness of their problems. Child illness and mortality is the greatest health challenge in these slum communities. This implies that intervention packages that address health service provision, environmental sanitation, personal hygiene, health seeking behavior, and livelihood opportunities are likely to have greater impact.

Informal Settlements and the Environment.

Informal settlements have often viewed as a source of pollution and disease. Lack of service provision, in particular sewer systems, refuse, and collection, and water supply, means that conditions are unsanitary. Household waste is generally abandoned into open streams, and downstream inhabitants suffer as a result. Rodents and insects often proliferate. In South Africa during the early years of the 20th century, such conditions were used to justify the eviction and segregation of non-white communities from cities like Johannesburg. Nairobi was also racially segregated, a policy rationalized as a means of achieving “a disease-free environment with a minimum of public expenditure. “This ‘environmental health’ narrative has been mobilized against poor Communities in other African countries, even in recent years. And for example Kibera is an informal settlement which had thirteen villages in south of Nairobi where according to the statics one million people live without electricity and proper sewerage. Toilets are holes in the ground and portable is hard to get and expensive. While it’s raining the situation gets worse. The settlements that they live in doesn’t provide opportunity for healthy life style because of their economic and social situations.

Creativity in Informality Settlements.

Informal settlements promotes certain level of platform for practicing the art. It plays an essential role in creative dynamics and vitalization processes. Urban creativity was based on misbehavior and investigation of the alternative. These process develop on edge of the formality and on the challenge of conventional solution. Graffiti, street art or other urban interventions have brought us many examples of these in recent years. These processes naturally bring important conflicts of uses between city users, both in material and symbolic arenas. These conflicts of interest, expressed in public and private spaces, are often associated to strong gentrification processes. Non-formal, non-sanitized spaces are particularly attractive to the development of creative dynamics. For some of the start-up artist who are economically not sound staying in the informal settlements provides a podium for them to practice their arts on the streets and enhance their skills.

User-Created Atmospheres.

The features of these neighborhoods that are most relevant is that locally developed neighborhoods are often well organized internally; they develop through courses that can be recognized, they are often constructed in a professional manner; and they have a tendency to improve over time. They usually are home to discriminated castes and communities, who improve their living standard incrementally, in line with the neighborhood's own urban development. The concepts of home-grown neighborhoods and neighborhoods in-formation as an entry point for policy, planning, and architectural engagements based on the recognition of local dynamics, developmental processes, and emerging forms. The neighborhood mentioned above have all been developed by masons, carpenters, plumbers and electricians who live and work within the locality. For the most part, they are built of hard industrial material such bricks, steel, cement, and plaster of Paris. This gives an interesting twist to the notion of ‘vernacular architecture’, since the techniques and labor are local but the materials are part of a global market. The small footprint of houses means that they can fairly easily be rebuilt with improved material and designs. Thus these neighborhoods characteristically improve over time, both in small increments and over longer phases.

Informality as Resistance.

 “By leaving the people to build or organize their markets informally, the government is able to accuse them of violating laws and regulations at any time. It is an indirect way to control as well as a way to reduce people’s demands and expectations of quality services, because they are informal.” So can we begin to think of informality not only as a way of survival or resistance but as a way to control?

-Dr. Khaled Abdelhalm.

In cities like Cairo and Mumbai the authorities give the opportunity in informal settlements to create their own place for certain function like markets and sometimes house also in the case of Istanbul and accuse them of violating the laws so that they don’t expect any other services from the government and they control the settlements. Which adversely effects on the life style of the people as they tend to fear to change certain things in their settlements and also in their own life style. The ways in which informal urban spaces are imagined, successfully constructed or ultimately disintegrate reflect degrees of competency and literacy in community organisation, in framing a cohesive and ‘deserving’ discourse and in the actual dialogue with local and national expressions of power .

Major effects of Living condition of people in informal settlements.

The extensive of poorly controlled settlement developments has resulted in many environmental and health related problems. Uncontrolled settlement development is causing physical disorder, uneconomical land utilization, and excessive encroachment of settlements into good agricultural land, environmental degradation and pollution risks

 The most common consequences of the informal settlements include the following:

Pollution of Water Sources:

Expansion of the informal human settlements has been the major cause for pollution of ground water sources, most of which are located on the periphery of the Town. Loss of vegetation around water sources reduces water flow while poor disposal of liquid and solid wastes causes water pollution .There have been frequent outbreaks of water borne diseases like cholera and dysentery, particularly during high rainfall seasons, due to contamination of the drinking water.

Deforestation:

Natural forests and catchment areas are being invaded by the expanding human settlements. The ongoing shrinkage Towns due to the expansion of settlements. This practice has reduced the amount of ground water and resulted in environmental degradation.

Pollution from Solid and Liquid Wastes:

One of the fundamental problems faced by the residents of Town is the lack of a proper system for waste management. The problem is even more severe in the informal settlement areas. Due to the lack of established collection points, piles of garbage are scattered in and around residential areas which leads to environmental and health problems. Few residents opt to bury or burn their wastes close to their residences. As there is no centralized sewage system, liquid waste which includes water from washing, laundry, kitchen, bath and other domestic uses is haphazardly discharged onsite. This disposal practice pollutes the groundwater and marine environments and is a major cause of water borne diseases.

Flooding:

Haphazard construction of houses has blocked many natural water ways and has led to frequent floods during the rainy seasons particularly in the months of March, April and May of every year. Soil erosion and landslides are strongly related to flooding which destroy houses as well as footpaths and unpaved roads. Houses and other properties are being washed away by floods forcing the inhabitants to vacate the areas. A high housing density, which most of the informal settlements are characterized by, makes natural seepage of storm water more difficult due to a high share of sealed land. Flooding which results in the overflow of pit latrines and septic tanks is also a major cause for pollution of water sources and marine environments. Due to the non-existence of drainage systems, storm water creates big puddles that become breeding places for mosquitoes which is the cause of malaria.

Encroachment of Good Agricultural Land:

The uncontrolled expansion of human settlements has led to conversion of the best agricultural land into settlements. There have been genuine complaints that the agricultural land is consistently decreasing due to over expansion of human settlements. This trend has not been reversed as more and more people are flocking into urban areas to look for what is perceived as a better life. The loss of agricultural land means a decrease of crop production and income of poor agricultural families.

Accessibility:

Lack of access is one of the most common problems caused by and experienced by residents in the informal settlements. Because there are neither the layout plans nor the regulatory machinery, residents tend to build to almost 100 per cent of their plot size. It has become impossible to provide access roads to these areas as there is no space for this. Likewise, no area is left open for social services like schools, hospitals, children’s play grounds, etc. Consequently, people and service movement in these areas is very restricted and residents have to walk long distance to obtain services like health, education, transport .

Illegal occupation of urban land and their Problems.

It is a widespread phenomenon in many metropolitan city like Mumbai, Cairo. Inner city slum dwellers, although occupying land outside the legal land tenure system with limited or no access to public utilities, benefit from their proximity to formal and informal employment in downtown areas. Illegal settlements in central areas create problems such as poor living conditions for the settlers and negative environmental and social impacts on the rest of populace, particularly those that utilize the central areas.

From the city’s perspective key problems include: higher than average incidence of wastes and odors in the settlements and surrounding neighborhoods; discontinuities of street structure resulting from many settlements situated in the right of way of planned roads; overcrowding of downtown urban services by the settlers. From the settlers’ perspective, key problems in downtown areas are similar to those of periphery settlements, except that downtown settlements have higher densities, thus posing a more complex and costly implementation challenge. Therefore, there is a need to both promote the social and economic advancement of slum dwellers and eliminate negative externalizes that affect the entire city. The programs required to address these situations are multi-sector and difficult to implement. However, the integrated interventions of settlement-upgrading programs in central areas generate significant urban benefits for the area as a whole, along with substantial improvements in living conditions for the beneficiaries, supporting the argument that such interventions are better conceptualized as urban development programs and that their overall economic benefits help justify their above average costs .

Conclusion:

From analysis the findings, Facts, statistics and research papers it can be said that the art of living in informal settlements depends on wide number of things like economic ,social , community, government , Services in the area , Individual perception ,education and so on. Informal settlements are not just about the settlement’s but it considers art of living or in other words the art of living depends on the condition that community is facing in the informal settlements. The life style of the people are molded according to the circumstances of the settlements. There is huge opportunities in this sector to improve the health condition and life style of the people with help of Ngo, Community and Government.

The trade-offs between living space and public amenities for any informal settlements upgrade are complex. These initiatives share a commitment by city governments to work with all the residents and their community organisations to seek the best workable compromise. This is much easier for governments in cases where representative organisations have been formed by those living in informal settlements and want to work with them, as is the case with the national and city federations of slum or shack dwellers that are active in nations. This is especially so when city governments work with those living in informal settlements to take advantage of their agglomeration economies and provide the infrastructure and services that can transform health and quality of life.

Working with communities to identify the road ahead can contribute to a socially cohesive approach within informal settlements. Evaluators should move on from passive acceptance of the situation to active engagement to drive toward meaningful solutions. Evaluators have a unique set of skills, and are well placed to find and facilitate solutions to the urbanization process typified within informal settlements. Taking a holistic, strategic approach, we can bring all issues together and focus on improving lifestyle in the informal settlements.

Bibliography:

• Working Paper of Urbanisation & the Production of Knowledge: The Case of Informality by Andrew Wade in UCl, London.

• Policy Brief: approaches to informal urban settlements in Africa: experiences from Kigali and Nairobi - by judi wakhungu, chris huggins, elvin nyukuri and jane lumumba.

• Research on Occupy urban space:  Dialectic of formality and informality in Greece in the era of crisis by Tsavdaroglou Ch. & Makrygianni V. Phd Candidates, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessalonik .

• Paper on the causes and consequences of the informal settlements in zanzibar 

mohammed haji ali and muhammad salim sulaiman, Tanzania in Shaping the Change XXIII FIG Congress Munich, Germany, October 8 – 13, 2006 .

• The Ideologies of Informality: informal urbanisation in the architectural and planning discourses Jan Van Ballegooijen & Roberto Rocco published online: 16 Dec 2013.

• Paper on Settings, Collectivises, Informalities:  Art and Public Space in Istanbul by Can ataly, Istanbul University.

• Postcolonialising informality by Ann Varley Department of Geography UCL (University College London).

• Health and Livelihood Needs of Residents of Informal Settlements in Nairobi City, Occasional Study Report 2002 by African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC).

• Working Paper by matias echanove (The University of Tokyo) Beyond the Informal: Reconceptualising Mumbai‘s urban development.

• Dissonant Architecture, Architectures of Dissidence:  On the Right to Urban Society by adrian parr (university of Cincinnati).

• Upgrading dense informal settlements: the potential for health and well-being by David Satterthwaite is a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

• RESILIENCE, Defining a New Paradigm through Informality by Adriana Navarro Sertich October 22, 2010.