Towards an Informal Turn in the Built Environment Education: Informality and Urban Design Pedagogy

Hesam Kamalipour and Nastaran Peimani
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Hesam Kamalipour: School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3WA, UK
Nastaran Peimani: Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3NB, UK

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 15, 1-14

Abstract: Informal urbanism, ranging from informal settlements to trading and transport, has become integral, but not limited, to the ways in which cities of the global South work. At stake here is the role of the built environment professions in responding to informal urbanism where a poor understanding of the complexities of informality can lead to poor design interventions. Providing a better understanding of how forms of informality work is then a key task for the built environment education, which arguably falls short in this regard. With a particular focus on urban design, we suggest that it is critical to move towards an informal turn in the built environment education to address informality and engage with the dynamics of informal urbanism. We first investigate the scope of urban design and then explore the ways in which urban design education can respond to informal urbanism in its curricula by developing an urban design program on informality as an illustration. The suggested approach can be considered as an initial step towards an informal turn in urban design education. We conclude that while urban design alone cannot solve social and economic problems, including poverty and inequality, its capacity to address the complex challenges of urbanization cannot be overlooked. Urban design education cannot remain isolated from the questions of informality anymore.

Keywords: urban design; higher education; informal urbanism; informality; urban design theory; urbanism; design studio; urban theory; urbanization; urban studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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