From first-aid to second thoughts: design teaching views on informal neighborhoods
Informal neighborhoods are home for a substantial and still growing part of the population of large urban centers in the so-called 'Global South.' A few decades ago, this issue was considered as a marginal subject in architecture schools, but it has now become more central to design
studio culture worldwide. Drawing from a decade of North-South academic exchange experiences, this paper aims to highlight and discuss the differences between the approach adopted by schools located in contexts where urban informality is endemic and the experimentations carried out by those
institutions that are not directly connected to it. Indeed, local architects involved with upgrading projects in informal neighborhoods tend to incorporate a 'first aid' approach to deal with what they consider to be the result of socially irresponsible policies and chronic injustice whereas
foreign designers are precisely attracted by the very unusual conditions of the informal city and therefore by the possibilities they offer to think and work otherwise.
Keywords: BRAZIL; DESIGN CULTURE; DESIGN STUDIO; INFORMAL SETTLEMENT; UNIVERSITY OUTREACH
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 September 2017
Charrette is the open access peer reviewed journal of the asssociation of architectural educators (aae). Contributions are welcomed from practitioners and theorists engaged in innovative and significant architectural education and research.
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