the architecture of shanty towns!

[crinno]

hi,
I'm starting to think about my thesis topic for next semester. I have always been interested in the regeneration of social housing areas etc. This time however i would like to go one step further down the property ladder and study shanty towns. Is there a way to design them in such a way that they can be transformed into a sustainable working community which can then in turn result in proper housing in the future? Or is too much to ask of architecture to perform such a role?

If anyone knows of books on the topic or similar live projects I'd really be interested.

thanks for looking,

k

[weosdfl34]

Nearly 40 years after "Hell's Belles," were you excited to do another show about bikers? I had a terrible motorcycle accident (in the 1970s), in San EQ2 plat Francisco, as a matter of fact. Doing a picture called ... oh, this is terrible. It's a very well-known film and I can't remember the name. That's what happens when you get older. ... I fell off a bridge in San Francisco and was laid up for two years.

[nanrehvasconez]

Shantytowns exist in every city with migranting populations from the farm to the industrial work sources.

The physical elimination of shantytowns by urban planners and developers have failed, because populations of this type of habitat have no education, technical or otherwise, crime is prevalent.

Providing schools, and strong family planning policies (birth control) has been successfully used in some places, but is always is hampered by misguded churches and boodoo practitioners with control over these people.

Venezuela and Brazil have had some success in moving people from shantytowns to urban planned communities via education, failing in the birth control area.

The equivalent of shantytowns exist in the USA and Western European countries in the form of delapidated housing gettos.
- nice flowers -
WIKIPEDIA
An imijondolo, or Shanty town, in Soweto, South AfricaShanty towns (also called squatter settlements camps or favelas) are settlements (sometimes illegal or unauthorized) of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap plywood, corrugated metal, and sheets of plastic. Shanty towns, which are usually built on the periphery of cities, often do not have proper sanitation, electricity, or telephone services.

Shanty towns are mostly found in developing nations, or partially developed nations with an unequal distribution of wealth. In extreme cases, shanty towns have populations approaching that of a city.

This page is not in reference to the city of Shantytown, located in Marathon County, Wisconsin, USA[1].

] Origins

Joe Slovo shanty town in Langa on the Cape Flats simmers after a fire (Cape Town, South Africa)Shanty towns tend to develop on the outskirts of cities. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, shanty towns, often called "Hobo jungles,", "favelas" or "Georgie Slums" appeared in cities across North America because of massive unemployment. Some were nicknamed "Hoovervilles" because the residents blamed the economic conditions on then President Herbert Hoover, whose decisions were popularly thought to have caused the depression. Similarly in Canada, hobo jungles were dubbed "Bennettville" after Prime Minister Bennett.[citation needed]

The first recorded use of the word shanty, as meaning a crude dwelling, was in Ohio in 1820.[citation needed] It may have been derived from the French Canadian word chantier, meaning hut in a lumber camp, from the French word for timberyard. Alternatively, it could have been derived from the Irish sean tí, meaning "old house" or from the Nahuatl word chantli "home".


Dangers

Shanty town near Tijuana, Mexico.Shanty town residences are almost always built without a license. Since construction is informal and unguided by urban planning, there is a near total absence of formal street grids, numbered streets, sanitation networks, electricity, or telephones. Even if these resources are present, they are likely to be disorganized, old or inferior. Shanty towns also tend to lack basic services present in more formally organized settlements, including policing, medical services, and fire fighting. Fires are a particular danger for shanty towns because of the close proximity of buildings and flammability of materials used in construction. [2] A sweeping fire on the hills of Shek Kip Mei, Hong Kong, on late 1953 has left 53,000 squatter dwellers homeless, prompting the colonial government to institute a resettlement estate system.

Stereotypes present shanty towns as inevitably having high rates of crime, suicide, drug use, and disease. However the observer Georg Gerster has noted (with specific reference to the invasões of Brasilia), "squatter settlements [as opposed to slums], despite their unattractive building materials, may also be places of hope, scenes of a counter-culture, with an encouraging potential for change and a strong upward impetus."[3]


[edit] Examples

Cite Soleil, Haiti, 2002
The police crush a demonstration by the South African Shackdwellers' Movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, 28 September 2007Shanty towns are present in a number of countries including India (about 50% of Bombay's 12 million population live in slums)[4], South Africa (where they are often called squatter camps) or imijondolo, Canada (known as Bidonvilles in Quebec), Australia (mainly in Aboriginal areas), the United States (mainly in Indian reservations or in the rural areas of Appalachia) the Philippines (often called squatter areas), Argentina (where they are referred to as villas miserias), Venezuela (where they are known as barrios), Brazil (favelas), West Indies such as Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago (Where they are known as shanty town), Peru (where they are known as pueblos jóvenes), and Haiti, where they are referred to as bidonvilles.

In many countries there are now large movements of shanty town residents which often face severe state repression.

[grid]

Look into Teddy Cruz and the work he does. He operates on the border of Tiguana and San Diego with some very interested ideas and research. He lectured at SCI-Arc recently so you may be able to find a video of that...

[pynchon]

look this web sites:
www.jauregui.arq.br
www.elementalchile.cl
livinginhere.com.mx

Books...
Planet of Slums - Mike Davis
Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A Urban New World - Robert Neuwirth

if you need more help, send me an email..
- blocked -

[mexico-bl]

[Fabdesigno]

Shanty towns are one of the main problems that many LEDCs' suffer from..the problem is that the infrastructure of shanty towns are rundown, which makes it difficult /impossible to regenerate/redesign a shanty town
(talking about a realistic project)
eg: Squatter settelments around Cairo where theyre concrete buildings

although if a shanty town (favelas) in Brazil are built by bamboo, temporary materials etc.. it could be solved by easier ways..
good luck!

[adiyes]

Go to http://adesignideas.blogspot.com and look under housing category. We've covered it under 'Slumdog Superstructure In Nairobi Kenya'.
Hope it would give you some ideas.
All the best.