Morphogenesis of Emerging Settlements: Mapping Incremental Urbanism

Hesam Kamalipour and Aminreza Iranmanesh
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Hesam Kamalipour: School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3WA, UK
Aminreza Iranmanesh: Faculty of Architecture, Near East University, Nicosia, TRNC 99138, Turkey

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Informal urbanism has become a widespread form of urbanisation, particularly in the context of the global South. While there is an emerging body of knowledge focusing on the morphologies of informal settlements, the incremental transformations of emerging settlements have remained underexplored. Drawing on a case study of an emerging settlement in Nigeria, we map the emergence and incremental transformation of access networks and buildings. This is an exploratory study focusing on the morphogenesis of emerging settlements to explore how the incremental production of space works. We adopt urban mapping and typology as key methods. Following the analysis of emerging access networks, this paper identifies three primary types of change, namely add, alter, and remove, and further develops a typology of emerging junctions by specifying four types of T, Y, X, and Mixed shape junctions. The incremental transformations of buildings primarily incorporate practices of addition and removal, among others. We also identify three forms of relation between the emerging access networks and buildings: access network first, building first, and co-production. We argue that moving towards developing adaptive design interventions relies on a sophisticated understanding of the process of morphogenesis in emerging settlements.

Keywords: informality; informal urbanism; urban form; morphology; morphogenesis; incrementalism; urbanisation; informal settlement; urbanism; mapping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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