Anticipated informality: The incremental development of resilience in the marginalised community of Plastic View

Abstract

The informal settlements of South Africa are commonly marginalised urban systems existing within larger formal urban landscapes. Due to their marginalisation, informal settlements often lack formal infrastructure, socio-economic opportunities and a sense of permanence, which in turn challenges their resilience. Focusing on the Plastic View informal settlement in Moreleta Park, the dissertation investigates architecture’s ability to contribute towards the settlement’s capacity to adapt or transform to desirable states when disturbed. The “safe-to-fail” system approach (Ahern 2011) is used to develop an architectural response that caters for continuous appropriation and adaptation by the local community. In order to understand and reinterpret Plastic View’s innate socio-spatial organisation and construction knowledge, a pattern language of the settlement is documented. This framework informs the design process from initial explorations through to technical and material resolution. The investigation into Plastic View’s internal resilience and prevailing vulnerabilities leads to a multifunctional intervention along the settlement’s emerging high street. The architecture addresses the settlement’s critical infrastructural deficit, whilst proposing diverse responses to housing and public space demands. The various avenues discussed in the dissertation, including community engagement, transformative participation, incremental upgrading and anticipated settlement growth, collectively assist with the improvement of Plastic View’s resilience and local living conditions.