Towards an Architecture of Civil Disobedience to Reclaim Informal Settlements Right to the City

Abstract

Informal settlements sit at the transition between numerous dimensions of globalisation and political decisions. Although poverty plays a big role in the manifestations of informal settlements, it is more complex due to the human tendency to find resolution with living in the city. The problem when looking at the “solution” for informal settlements is by blaming the growth of it on simplistic “problems” because of political and civil state tendencies. Global governance promotes human rights yet on the other side of the spectrum aim to decrease informality and poverty causing a stigma of unworthiness towards people living in these settlements (Huchzermeyer 2011). Thus, this project aims to investigate the impact architecture has on informal urbanism and the legal boundaries surrounding it. Plastic View, an informal settlement situated amid the affluent eastern suburbs of Pretoria, South Africa, is presented as an example of how these policies that have been misinterpreted over a span of more than a decade, with little to no evidence of architectural engagement. Civil disobedience tests the statute and forms part of constitutionalism moving towards the process of effecting and affecting the law through any extra-legal action. The division between interior and exterior law is the foundations of all law (Finchett-Maddock & Lambert 2013). Architecture can be the best expression of the law and its organized system. Expression through urban development and spatial planning of informal settlements that will reconfigure the law by putting these settlements on the grid of property rights (Finchett-Maddock & Lambert 2013). Architecture becomes the physical embodiment of law (Karim 2018). Acting as the private realm the adjacent Moreleta NG church has initiated various socially engaged programmes which aims to uplift the community of Plastic view. Through the use of various design principles this project's architectural intentions is to activate the South Eastern boundary through seaming together both the private and public realm. Through the use of intimate and open public spaces, permeable inclusive spatial layouts allow for new opportunities for civil discourse between various social realms. By activating and occupying these various spaces, exclusive socio-legal and socio-spatial boundaries can be broken down.