Towards a morphogenesis of informal settlements

Abstract Informal settlement is the most pervasive mode of urbanization throughout cities of the global South, yet little is known of how informal urban design works as a production of urban space. This paper maps the emergence and transformation of street/laneway networks and buildings in a broad range of settlements. While such data cannot reveal the social, economic and political complexity of individual cases, it demonstrates the range of informal morphologies and self-organizational practices that produce them. Building types, plots, blocks, streets and lanes are analyzed to extract the informal rules or logics that are embodied within such morphologies. This is a nascent study that begins to reveal the ways in which informal settlement works to produce habitable land, affordable housing and public space. The prospect is a better knowledge base for understanding how such practices may or may not produce ‘slums’, how upgrading practices may be improved and how informal production may be anticipated and harnessed.