Urban Informality: Integration of Informality within a Formal City

Abstract

As our cities are dominated by automobiles and vehicular traffic, the city as a place for meeting, gathering and socialising has been threatened by the formal planning of our urban spaces. Streets are looked at as, spaces for vehicles to function, which creates a formal environment that do not offer opportunities for social exchanges. Architects and urban designers have the opportunity to offer a new view of what streets can offer, through the integration of ‘informality’ or informal activities into a formal city to develop further social inclusion. Informality or informal activities are defined as outside what is official or planned such as street vendors, hawkers, buskers, temporary use, spontaneous and social activities and other urban unstructured activities that spontaneously emerge in urban spaces. The research project investigates and explores how the emergence of informal activities can influence the life and vitality of a formal city in this case, Wellington. A case study approach was carried out to observe, analyse and explore the spatial conditions that influence informal activities and investigate the parameters various informal activities require in order to occupy spaces along a street. The design responds to the key findings from the case study analysis and explores different ways in which informality or informal activities can integrate within a formal city space, in this case, Blair Street. Architecture does not have to be a large physical structure to create interactions and spatial integration, rather subtlety through the forms of ‘soft infrastructure’ is essential to develop a character, a spatial quality that may generate informality and create life and vitality within the city.