Hidden Rules

Page 1

HIDDEN

RULES



HIDDEN RULES ARE THERE RULES AND REGULATIONS EVEN IN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS?

OLIVER LEECH Bartlett School of Architecture Thesis 2013


Many thanks to Finn Williams for his advice and guidance throughout.

And also to Allan Lausten, Susanne Krigslund, Darryl Chen, Felix Madrazo,David Knight, Alfredo Brillembourg & Arezo Mirzahosseinkha for their help and invaluable insight.


CONTENTS Thesis

Urbanism and Informality

1

Defining the Informal

7

Rio de Janeiro 21 Christiania 37 Caochangdi 57 Conclusion 61 The Rules 67 Bibliography

71

Image Credits 77 Appendix

Interview with Susanne Krigslund

81

Interview with Allan Lausten 93

Interview with Darryl Chen

103



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ARE THERE RULES AND REGULATIONS EVEN IN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS?

URBANISM AND INFORMALITY

Our generation has been witness to enormous global population

growth and unprecedented urbanisation. The world has now reached

approximately seven billion people, and according to the World Health Organisation, 2010 marked the tipping point, with half of the world’s

population living in urban areas. By 2050 this has been predicted to rise

to two thirds of the population and, today, the number of urban residents is increasing by almost sixty million people ever year1, meaning eighty percent of population growth is happening within cities. Throughout the world there is a burgeoning and insatiable demand for city living.

1 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs / Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects, The 2011 Revision (New York, 2002).


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But this ‘global’ process of urbanisation is not global at all, but very much biased towards less developed countries. Whilst there is an overall

increase in urban populations in developed countries the figures are much less spectacular. Today, in Europe and North America, 78 percent of people live in urban areas but the rate of urbanisation has been slowing down

since the 1950s. The UK’s urban population is only increasing by 100,000 people annually whilst China’s is expanding by 35 million, ‘a speed unprecedented in human history.’2 During the 1980s China increased its urban population greater ‘than did all of Europe in the entire nineteenth century.’3 And explosive growth is not limited to just China. In Sub-Saharan

Africa the cities are expanding by nearly 10 million people a year. Brazil,

a semi-developed country with a booming economy, already has 85

percent of its population living in cities but year on year there are over half a million new city-dwellers. So rather than being a global endemic it is very much a regional one, with cities in less developed countries buckling

under the strain of their new inhabitants whilst the developed world has

reached a point of equilibrium. However, it is not purely a matter of time that separates the developed and developing world but also timescale. As Mike Davies explains, ‘the scale and velocity of Third World urbanization, moreover, utterly dwarfs that of Victorian Europe. London in 1910 was

seven times larger than it had been in 1800, but Dhaka, Kinshasa, and

Lagos today are each approximately forty times larger than they were in 1950.’4 This short and aggressive population growth gives little chance for the cities to grow with it; it is simply not sustainable.

2 David Drakakis-Smith, “Third World Cities,” Financial Times, July 27, 2004, 2nd edition. 3 Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, Reprint (London: Verso, 2007), 2. 4 Ibid.


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Fig#1 Informal settlement in Caracas overshadowed by large buildings

Although this growth is not expected to last forever (the world’s population is predicted to peak at 10 billion by 2050) it is unsurprising that the formal

market cannot keep up with this tremendous housing demand. The result is that the vast majority of migrants arriving in the city live as squatters

in informal settlements normally on the peripheries of the city. To put this in perspective, ‘of the 500,000 people who migrate to Delhi each year it is

estimated that fully 400,000 end up in slums; by 2015 India’s capital will

have a slum population of more than 10 million.’5 There are estimated to be more than 200,000 informal settlements on the planet and ‘a billion squatters in the world today - one in every six humans. And the density is on the rise.’6

5 Ibid., 18. 6 Robert Neuwirth, Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, New Ed (London: Routledge, 2006), 9.


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Fig#2 Favela Rocinha: the largest informal settlement in Brazil with 70,000 inhabitants

However, in the process of urbanisation it is not solely the case of massmigration to large metropolises. Large villages become small towns and large towns become small cities. There is a quick but more incremental

movement of people to urban settlements of all scales, and therefore a gradual movement of cities to the people. ‘In many cases rural people no longer have to migrate to the city: it migrates to them.’7 Informality

is a key part of the history of our cities – it is the predominant form of urbanism, always preceding formal planning systems. Their inhabitants

are ‘the largest builders of housing in the world,’8 so as architects and planners, understanding these complex settlements is crucial. Informal

communities are the past but they are also most definitely the future as well.

7 8

Davis, Planet of Slums, 9. Ibid.


5

Fig#3 Kowloon Walled City: a now demolished informal settlement that existed in a pocket of deregulation within Hong Kong.

This thesis focuses on these informal communities to try and discover

and uncover the underlying hidden rules that may exist in supposedly

unplanned environments. Why do we so often presume that these settlements are not ‘designed’ or regulated, just because there is no official planning or governmental regulation or documentation in place?

Are these communities, in fact, just as ‘designed’ as London? And is the growth of these places completely organic or is there a more rational and

larger master plan at work? Through research and analysis of various case studies across the world these ‘rules’, whether spatial or social and whether written or implicit can be discovered against the backdrop of

urbanisation at global and local scales. The intention is, with this study, architects, planners and policy-makers can be better placed to understand

how urban growth might be accommodated in the future and how to coordinate development in less-regulated environments.


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Figs#4,5 Jacarezinho, Rio de Janeiro. The distiction between the formal and informal is immediately obvious. But are these settlements disordered?


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DEFINING THE INFORMAL

Firstly, it is critical to understand and establish the difference between the

unplanned and the informal, both of which can be used to describe certain

settlements throughout this thesis. The term unplanned is sometimes defined as ‘not intentional’, ‘having no particular purpose, organisation or structure’, or ‘random’.9

In terms of the types of settlements that are being discussed, whether

a favela in Brazil, a barrio in Caracas or a johdpadpatti in India, these definitions are not relevant and so do not apply. Certainly there was intention and there is a very clear purpose. And at first, while they may appear random, there is a very real structure and logic to them. Many of

the houses are the same style and shape and there is a very clear hierarchy

of routes that carve through the patchwork of buildings (see figs#4,5) – hardly something that could be described as random.

9 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006).


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Fig#6 View of Rocinha in 2007. It has become increasingly gentrified and developed over the years as formal businesses seek new opportunites in the favela.

In architectural terms, however, the unplanned suggests that there is no

official planning documentation for that area – the houses have not gained

permission to be built and would not likely meet the governmental and local planning regulations that exist in the other parts of the city. This

definition, then, could imply a sense of illegality as well, which is another term that is too broad to apply to all informal settlements.

The use of the word informal overlaps with unplanned but there is also a distinction. Informal does not imply a lack of purpose, a lack of organisation, a lack of intention, or spontaneity but it does still suggest

a lack of regulation, and an irregularity. This makes the term much more relevant to this urban typology.

The architect and theorist Rahul Mehrotra uses time to draw the distinction between the formal and the informal. He describes the informal city as

‘temporal in nature and often built with recycled materials... It constantly


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modifies and reinvents itself.’10 He describes the formal city as ‘static’

and the informal as ‘kinetic’, reversing the physical manifestation of the city using words such as ‘flow’, ‘instability’ and ‘indeterminacy’. While this urban typology is very hard to define, this classification is hugely

generalised and underestimates many informal settlements. Of course, his categorisation is partly true, as often these settlements grow very rapidly

with the buildings continually being demolished, rebuilt and improved. But parts of the formal landscape could also comply with this definition –

one just has to look at cities such as Dubai or Shenzhen to find this to be the

case. And many ‘informal’ settlements have been around for decades (the

first favela in Rio de Janeiro appeared 120 years ago) – hardly transitional. I believe the word to be much more complex than that.

10 Rahul Mehrotra, “Foreword,” in Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America, ed. Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett, and Lea K. Allen (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010), xi.


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Peter Kellett and Felipe Hernández try and break the meaning down

much more rationally. They write: the informal is, in theory, ‘the shapeless areas of the city where economic and socio-political structures are

particularly unstable and in which culture is characterised by its apparent

incoherence.’11 But this still implies instability and chaos, which I do not

believe are pre-requisites for an informal community. The word ‘shapeless’ also has a strong association with form, which is certainly not something that I think separates the informal from the formal. Difference in form,

materials and aesthetics are purely by-products of these two types of urbanisms, much like criminality or poor health standards.

Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, of Urban-Think Tank12, come closest to the definition that will be explored in this thesis: ‘We do not believe ‘informal’ means ‘lacking form’. It implies, for us, something that

arises from within itself and its makers, whose form has not yet been recognised, but which is subject to rules and procedures potentially as

specific and necessary as those that have governed official, formal citymaking.’13 This is important because settlements and communities do 11 Felipe Hernández and Peter Kellett, ‘Introduction: Reimagining the Informal in Latin America,’ in Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America, ed. Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett, and Lea K. Allen (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010), 1. 12 ‘Urban-Think Tank is an interdisciplinary design practice dedicated to high-level research and design on a variety of subjects, concerned with contemporary architecture and urbanism’, from “Urban-Think Tank,” accessed April 8, 2013, http://www.u-tt.com/officeAbout_UTT.html. 13 Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, “Rules of Engagement: Caracas and the Informal City,” in Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America, ed. Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett, and Lea K. Allen (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010), 120.


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not appear spontaneously – the process happens over weeks, years and

centuries and through this process an order emerges. People continually

make conscious decisions that shape their cities – even in informal settlements.

It is also important that there is a separation between the informal and illegal. These settlements are often large-scale, permanent, urban

organisms that are super-complex and highly developed. What makes them informal is that they are built outside the legal framework of city planning, but they are certainly not criminal. Another thing that the name

suggests is that these places are slum-like. Yes, on a broad level many of

the informal settlements are sub-standard, overcrowded and dangerous,

with inadequate access to safe water and poor sanitisation. But many are now well developed and can be hard to distinguish from the ‘formal’

parts of the city. Rocinha, the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro with around

70,000 inhabitants, has started to become gentrified, a process known as asfaltização (asphaltisation), where business from the outside city, the

asphalt city, move into the community, blurring the divide between the two.

But what few writers mention when trying to define this type of urbanism

is that it is not solely a product of the third world. Of course, because of the

mass migration and poverty that exists in these places it is certainly more common. Nevertheless, if we are to define the informal as settlements which exist outside of legal planning boundaries then we must include other communities around the world that may be free from criminality,

poverty and extreme densities – normally conditions associated with the informal. Freetown Christiania is a small community of around three

hundred homes situated in the heart of Copenhagen. Perhaps surprising


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given its location within one of the most economically developed countries in the world, but Christiania is certainly an informal settlement, as it does

not fall within any planning jurisdiction in either Copenhagen or Denmark. Both the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and Christiania become the focus of this

research into informality because first world examples cannot be ignored if a thorough study is undertaken.

Informality is nothing new but is part of a process that has been happening

since the dawn of civilisation. The reason it has only become such a hotly debated issue now is that globalisation at this scale is a relatively new

phenomenon and only when cities are so blatantly formal does one notice the contradiction of the informal so clearly. After all, ‘all cities start in the mud.’14 Established cities like London and Paris did not start with one

vision or master plan that ordered the city through rules. Instead they

were conceived as small villages that grew spontaneously and organically. At this point they were certainly informal, since, by our definition, the

development was not bound by any legal framework, since none existed.

Only once the city had grown to a certain size did restrictions, rules and regulations become bona fide and written title deeds were used to prove

and manage possession of land – only then did the city become formalised.

And even after parts of the city had been formalised, migration from rural regions did not stop; new informal settlements were born, evolved and expanded. Indeed, in 1587, Paris had 17,000 people living in informal communities around the city walls.15 Two centuries later, when the population had doubled to over half a million inhabitants the number of 14 15

Neuwirth, Shadow Cities, 169. Ibid., 18.


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Fig#7 Christiania: An informal ‘freetown’ within the heart of Copenhagen

people living in slums was 91,000. In England it was the same situation.

‘In medieval London… squatting was so prevalent that invaders even took

land held by the Crown. Almost every royal forest had its contingent of illegal residents.’16

It is only once these informal settlements have expanded naturally that

one can start to see the formalisation of the area taking place, as the

community starts to develop an organising structure with their own codes, using unwritten rules to promote the efficiency and establishment of their community. Indeed, settlements are informal until there is a formalisation

of the unwritten agreements. ‘This is how a squatter community develops. This is how a city develops: organically.’17

The process of time is such an important factor in the development of cities, codes and rules. So perhaps Mehrotra was not entirely wrong to describe

the informal as kinetic, since it is always moving towards formality. The 16 17

Ibid., 182. Ibid., 55.


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city comes first; the rules follow. Rules that first began as a manifestation

of social rituals or habits eventually become engrained into written law. For example, in Wales in the early nineteenth century, informal settlers

believed they were authorised to acquire land under the principle of ty annos, which was an unwritten customary law holding that ‘a family could

establish a right to whatever it could build or enclose in the course of

one night.’18 A similar custom exists in Turkey, held since ancient times, called gecekondu (directly translates as ‘it happened at night’) – whatever was built overnight, from dusk till dawn, could not be demolished, nor the family evicted, without taking to court. Here is in example of a twelfth

century rule found within sharia law, which is the moral code that exists within Islam based on the Qur’an. It applies to areas ‘where the public interest takes precedence over private concerns’19, such as suqs:

“In narrow streets, traders must not set out seats or benches beyond the line of pillars supporting the roof of the suq so as to obstruct the way for the passerby. The prolongation of wooden beams and projections, the planting of trees, and the building of benches are forbidden in the narrow streets, the way through the suq being common property though which the public has the right to pass… So also the tethering of animals is forbidden except as required for alighting and mounting. Seeping refuse into the passageway, scattering melon skins and sprinkling water, which may cause slipperiness… these are all forbidden.”20

18 Ibid., 184. 19 Eran Ben-Joseph, The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making (London: MIT Press, 2005). 20 Saleh Ali Al-Hathloul, Tradition, Continuity, and Change in the Physical Environment: The Arab-Muslim City (Riyadh: Dar Al Sahan, 1996), 84.


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Fig#8 Black Rock, Nevada: home to the Burning Man Festival

From these examples it is possible to see how, from something that starts

as just common practice and common sense, through repetition and

duplication, can develop and evolve into written law. And contemporary laws work on exactly the same principle. One of the most powerful

examples of this formalisation through time is described by Eran BenJoseph in his book The Code of the City and it is a process that we see mirrored in the study of Christiania.

Nevada’s Black Rock is home to the Burning Man festival, its desert sands populated with tens of thousands of people for one week a year, momentarily inhabiting the informal settlement dubbed Black Rock City.

This settlement has no official rule or regulation, so ‘communal etiquette

and social norms dictate conduct and the making of the place.’21 The temporary city was never planned, and has expanded over the years as the festival became more popular. At the centre stands an effigy of the Burning Man and so the campsites were instinctively arranged in a circular fashion

around this central point. As the city grew, concentric ring roads were formed, then subdivided into camping plots through radial streets (see 21

Ben-Joseph, The Code of the City, 1.


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Fig#9 Black Rock City. Created through logic and formalised through years of expansion


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fig#9). An area of no-man’s land was even created, preserving the view of Burning Man, as well as distinct zoning and strict boundaries. The

organisers said, ‘this very much involves an empirical study of our social needs as they’ve naturally emerged from an increasingly sophisticated

social reality.’22 The story of Black Rock beautifully demonstrates that it is

not the power of top-down decision-making that initially shapes our cities but bottom-up activity that decides how we form our urban realm and ultimately our rules.

In the same book, however, Ben-Joseph writes, ‘standards are the source of how communities are designed and built. They define how place can and can’t be developed, and how controls shape the physical space where we live and work.’23 I believe this not to be the case. As we can learn from

Black Rock, medieval London and will do from Christiania, rules are a product of the city and its citizens, and therefore the opposite remains

true. Communities are not built through standards, rules or codes; rules

are built through communities and only then can they start to shape future development, either though limitations or through the genesis of a new way of building as a result of these restrictions. This new way might

give birth to a new set of standards and so the city and its rules exist in a productive mutualism, whereby each is formed by the other. Thus, I believe Ben-Joseph to be mistaken when he states that, ‘across the globe, communities are shaped by standards and codes that virtually dictate all

aspects of urban development,’24 as that only deals with one side of the process, and not with the symbiosis that exists between the two. 22 23 24

Ibid. Ibid., xxi. Ibid., xiii.


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In some ways, Britain’s planning system has long been caught up in the backward process described by Ben-Joseph, the exact problem the Localism Act of 2011 was trying to address. The aim of the bill was to

give empowerment to the community so that legislation could be localised and changed from the bottom up. In 2010, David Cameron and Nick Clegg

said, ‘the time has come to disperse power more widely in Britain today.’25 Would that make the system align more closely with the more organic and

natural process that has existed for centuries? Since the act has only been

recently adopted it is hard to judge the success, but will cutting the red tape have disastrous effects on local urbanism, or positive ones? Rules, through their natural process, and through human instinct, will always

find a way of being born; it is how we ensure democracy and fairness for all our citizens. Therefore when there is a vacuum of authority, it will

soon be filled by another; what form will this authority take? And what

lessons can be drawn from informal settlements that could help inform new opportunities exposed by the withdrawal of regulation?

25 2011.

Coalition Government, “A Plain English Guide to the Localism Act,”



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Fig#10 Favela Roquete Pinto, Rio de Janeiro. Official population estimate of 7,488 (2,382 homes)


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RIO DE JANEIRO

Even though examples of the informal can be found throughout the world,

it is natural that when one thinks of the informal they think of South America, to such cities as Rio de Janeiro, São Paolo and Caracas. To many they epitomise characteristics that invoke informality. Rio, for example,

has over six hundred favelas that have existed for over a century; as Robert

Neuwirth puts it, ‘they demand that [they] be the focus because squatters

there have a long and noble history.’26 Rio also has a personal connection, as it is central to my architectural design study. After spending time in the

city, and exploring the favelas, the project is proposing a new infrastructure

for Roquete Pinto (fig#10), a favela in Zona Nord on the edge of Guanabara

Bay. As a result, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro will become the focus of this study into South American informality. 26

Neuwirth, Shadow Cities, 16.


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From an outside perspective, these informal settlements might look completely random with houses densely packed in a seemingly disordered

way, but there are unwritten and underlying rules and logics that govern, shape and structure these communities. As Alfredo Brillembourg, of Urban-Think Tank, writes:

‘If one looks from a distance, one sees sprawling, rhizome-like shapes; one searches in vain for an ordering principle, a clear beginning and end, for ways to separate the whole into comprehensible elements. But close up, patterns begin to emerge and a certain logic – unlike that taught by conventional architecture or planning – can be discerned’27

It is an instinctive human reaction to try and find order within seemingly

disordered things. We are creatures of order, not chaos; order will always develop where there was none previously. Modern planning principles

work on this assumption – the assumption that the world must be ordered and formalised. In fact, it is only recently that these fundamental beliefs have been challenged. Postmodern planners argue for a more pluralist

attitude, and against the singular and ordered vision of the Modernists.

That said, one could still consider the favelas to be disordered, since there

is little obvious logic to their layout. But if care is taken to understand these communities from the perspective of an inhabitant, and at a micro

scale rather than the typical macro scale of urbanists, then the informal might seem much more ordered than at first thought.

27 Brillembourg and Klumpner, “Rules of Engagement: Caracas and the Informal City,” 119.


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Fig#11 Favela Roquete Pinto, Rio de Janeiro. Historical photographs. The timber homes were built over the water but now the buildings are constructed of concrete and brick, and the shoreline has been pushed back.


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Fig#12 Comparing the formal and the informal: New York, Paris and Roquete Pinto

This notion of the constant human ordering of our urban world interestingly opposes the natural process of our universe, based on the concept of

entropy, whereby nature is forever tending towards chaos. But, even so, while the universe moves towards chaos we, as humans, are forever

creating order. ‘We make order out of chaos. Consciousness tends towards order. We build boxy houses, sleek cars, clothes, arcade machines. While the Universe conspires to destroy those things, we strive to make them. We create order. A conscious mind takes chaos, and puts order to it.’28 But

the order we are creating does not necessarily have to be ‘ordered’ from the point of view of the planner or architect. It is important to remember that order refers ‘simultaneously to a process and an outcome.’29 It could

be argued that the favelas are just as ordered as Manhattan or Paris

(fig#12), but the patterns and logics are not so instantly recognisable. In fact, ‘the world is moving toward a less formal, more flexible order’,30 and

the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and barrios of Caracas are finally beginning to be understood as complex and ordered typologies that can be learnt from, rather than changed.

28 “Wonders of the Universe; Order to Chaos,” My Medicated Life, accessed March 28, 2013, http://mymedicatedlife.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/wonders-ofuniverse-order-to-chaos.html. 29 Alex Lehnerer, Grand Urban Rules (Rotterdam: 010, 2008), 111. 30 Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, “Towards an Informal City,” in Informal City: Caracas Case, ed. Alfredo Brillembourg, Kristin Feireiss, and Hubert Klumpner (London: Prestel, 2005), 43.


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So what rules, patterns and logics are there in these informal settlements?

Firstly, the buildings all look very similar; they use the same construction techniques, the same materials, and are roughly the same size. Compare

this to the formal city, the centro of Rio for example, and one could postulate that this belongs to a much more irregular urban typology

where the buildings come in all possible varieties; shining glass office towers, brutal concrete housing blocks and grand art deco buildings all stand side by side in the formal zone.

But is the informal, a favela such as Roquete Pinto, like this because it is

ordered by some underlying rules, or is it just the outcome of a simple set

of logical decisions? The inhabitants use concrete and bricks because they are the cheapest materials available to them are relatively easy to erect.

And the houses are generally built on a 3m x 4m grid because that is about

the maximum that they can calculate using simple concrete beams filled with steel reed bars. So the simplest answer would be to say that these

are the reasons, and the only reasons, that make the favela the way that it is. However, I believe that it is far more complex than that and there

are many more factors at work. It is based on a set of relationships that humans have with architecture, urbanism and community, which includes but transcends the simple and logical structure/economy equation.

The construction technique used in the favelas is a simple one; load bearing

concrete beams supported by thin reinforced concrete columns (fig#14). The walls are then infilled with red hollow clay blocks, and either left

exposed or rendered with more concrete. Interestingly, the same outcome, which is essentially a concrete box with a few small openings, could be

equally successfully achieved using concrete breezeblocks (or bricks) and load bearing walls – a construction technique historically preferred in


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Fig#13 The Domino House system designed by Le Corbusier: simple concrete slabs with thin columns

Europe. So why not use this method? ‘The process of laying foundation blocks, building a formwork out of wood, placing the steel reinforcement

and pouring concrete is known to every construction worker in Brazil.’31 That may be why the inhabitants, a large proportion of which work in the construction industry, use this heavily practiced method but that is not the whole answer.

The same construction can be found elsewhere throughout Brazil, from the poorest housing to luxury residential developments. Brazil has had

a strong and proud connection with Modernist architecture since the 1950s, influenced by the philosophy of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus. One

can see iterations of this in Oscar Niemeyer and Gregori Warchavchik’s architecture and city planning, but somehow the style has achieved a

‘broader and deeper dissemination’32, elements of which appear in middle31 Fernando Luiz Lara, “The Form of the Informal: Investigating Brazilian Self-Built Housing Solutions,” in Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America, ed. Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett, and Lea K. Allen (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010), 29. 32 Ibid., 32.


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Fig#14 The favela homes use a simple construction method: Concrete slabs (with small overhangs) and thin concrete columns infilled with brick.

class housing throughout the country, the majority having no architect involvement.

The Domino House system (fig#13), created by Le Corbusier and adopted by his Brazilian Modernist colleagues can be seen to noticeably disseminate

through the classes. The system advocated the use of large concrete slabs supported by thin columns, which might explain the concrete post-and-

beam system in the favela with their lack of load bearing walls. The brisesoleils, which were also a feature of modernist buildings, appear in middle

class homes and then in an adapted and retailored form in the favelas.

Informal communities have a very different set of priorities which ‘does not allow money to be spared on formal articulations.’33 So instead the classically modern brise-soleils are manifested as a simple overhanging

extension of the slab, which achieves a similar objective, if more crudely obtained.

33

Ibid., 34.


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Figs#15 Gustavo Capanema Palace, Rio de Janeiro: this office building is one of the finest examples of Brazilian modernist architecture, designed by Lucio Costa. Oscar Niemeyer also worked on the project, as did Le Corbusier, who was brought in to oversee the design.

From these small examples, it is already apparent that the decisions made

in informal settlements aren’t always based solely on models of economy

and efficiency. This conclusion leads to the first unwritten rule of informal settlements:

R U L E # 1 : E L E V A T E Y O U R S T A T U S  Every attempt should be made, where possible, to increase one’s status within the community.

It is important to distinguish between the desire to create better living #1

conditions, which is surely embedded within our human character, and this more subtle ‘rule’ which is something based on style and choice. It

is about the yearning to increase one’s status in society, which in this

case has manifested itself through the copying of stylistic elements from


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Fig#16 San Gimignano: a hilltop settlement where family status was conveyed through architecture.

formal buildings that surround the favelas. It is based on pride rather than need, and this underlying sense of pride can have a large affect on how a community is built.

The aspiration to elevate one’s status within society is not limited to

informal settlements. San Gimignano (fig#16) is a small medieval town

located in the hills of Tuscany. In the 13th Century, competition for status was so great that each noble family built a tower as tall as possible with

‘each metre of height a manifestation of the owner’s superior social

status.’34 The result was a skyline dominated by seventy soaring towers.

Pride should not be underestimated as one of the driving-forces of development.

But it would be wrong to assume that everyone in the favela was conscious of current architectural trends. They do not hold the same relationship with architecture, through books, journals or first-hand observation that 34

Lehnerer, Grand Urban Rules, 88.


30

Fig#17 Favela Rocinha: overhanging slabs and painted walls are commonplace


31

we would consider normal in the developed world. Instead these trends

are disseminated slowly through the classes, reaching the favela perhaps

through word of mouth. Once this exchange between the formal and the informal has happened, once a style or method has been adopted, it will

start to breed and be copied throughout the community. There is a culture of imitation in the favelas, whereby inhabitants will replicate tried and tested methods, copying from a neighbour or friend.

R U L E # 2 : I M I T A T E , D O N ’ T I N N O V A T E  Always use the existing community as a precedent.

=

This rule is the manifestation of a conservative attitude that exists

within these communities. While many of the inhabitants work in the construction industry, few are construction experts and repeating a known method is the safest way to be assured of success. And even though

they are highly resourceful, imitation seems to be favoured over radical new solutions. After all, the homes are illegal structures, built without

planning permission. Perhaps, by copying the existing style of the area, one is preventing attention being drawn to their home. If there are ten thousand other houses that look identical and have been ignored by the

authorities, there is an overwhelming chance that it will be ignored too, and so could be viewed as an act of self-preservation.

#2


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Fig#18 Favela Rocinha: instantly recognisable with brightly coloured houses at the base of the hill

R U L E # 3 : C R E A T E A N I D E N T I T Y  The character of the community should be unique and instantly recognisable.

Through endless duplication, and the preservation of the status quo, an

unavoidable vernacular is created, resulting in a settlement that starts to #3

be read as a community rather than a series of individual homes. Favelas in

Brazil can be distinguished by their red brick walls and flat roofs, but there

are also other subtleties that make each favela recognisable from another. This enhances the sense of community coherence and creates a unique identity for the inhabitants. This is evident in Rocinha, the largest favela in

Brazil and home to over 70,000 Cariocas.35 Situated on a very steep slope

in the Zona Sud, the only access point into the settlement is at the base

of the incline, the threshold between the informal and the formal. The

buildings that sit on this threshold are painted in a variety of six different 35

Carioca is the name given to the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro


33

vivid colours (fig#18). This gives the immediate area, and the rest of the

favela a very identifiable flavour and particular style. Whether consciously

or unconsciously achieved, the inhabitants have clearly made a distinction between the formal landscape and their favela, which is important in the process of creating and defining their community.

History shows us that cities grow in an organic way, from a tiny hamlet or

informal collection of temporary structures into larger settlements. And during this process, standardised ways of livings and codes of practice are formalised as a way of cementing and protecting these traditions.

The vast majority of modern formal settlements were made in this way and the process is still ongoing as society forms rules that consequently inform society. It can be argued that informal settlements are actually no different from formal settlements but are simply just further behind in the timeline of mutations that will ultimately create a formalised community

as we know it. Time will allow these settlements to form their own set of rules and, with the precedent already set, and as communities learn from each other, the process may be accelerated.

To assume that the favelas, just because of their informal status, have little

social structure and internal organisation is misguided. Indeed, many have elected leaders and community committees to deal with both social and planning issues. Felix Madrazo, who studied the informal settlements

of Caracas found that the settlements actually have an extremely complex internal governing system. In fact, in La Vega, one of the largest barrios

in Caracas (95,000 inhabitants), the community is divided into smaller

neighbourhoods and the twenty or so community leaders meet weekly to discuss their particular agendas. What’s more, the leaders of each barrio


34

then meet monthly to cross-pollinate ideas from across the 150 different

barrios. So, as Madrazo argues, it is clearly not chaotic and disorganised.36

Nor are these settlements a product of swarm urbanism as some urbanists have suggested. 37 Instead, the informal communities are powered by

similar systems found in modern formal urbanism, but the systems have yet to be formalised or recognised by external structures.

Hernandez de Soto, the renowned Peruvian economist, recognised

this and theorised that the last step to legitimise and formalise these communities was to offer the residents official title-deeds to their land.

Without title-deeds these settlements cannot contribute or benefit from

the formal economic market creating ‘dead capital’, which adds up to more

than $70 trillion globally. 38 By giving the inhabitants official ownership of

their properties they can formally compete in the global marketplace and more easily obtain credit. Like many things however, it is not as simple

as that, and this could lead to monetisation of the favela, pushing the

poorer further afield (eviction by market). Regardless, this theory clearly supports the notion that the favelas and barrios are well suited and well adapted to be integrated into formal society.

36 Felix Madrazo, interview by author, April 5, 2013. 37 Neil Leach, “Swarm Urbanism,” Architectural Design 79, no. 4 (2009): 56–63. 38 Hernando de Soto, “The Destruction of Economic Facts,” BusinessWeek: Magazine, April 28, 2011.


35

Rocinha, for example, through its asfaltização and highly developed internal infrastructure has been reclassified as a neighbourhood and

although it is still commonly referred to as such it has actually lost its official favela status. This process will continue to happen as part of a

process that started since the birth of civilised urbanism. Christiania, in Denmark, the next example of informal urbanism, is also part of the same

process but unusual in that it is going through this process of formalisation very rapidly, having a history that only goes back forty years. It is also unusual in that the residents continually oppose this formalisation.


36

Fig#19 Freetown Christiania: home to 700 residents in the heart of Copenhagen. While the centre, and busiest, area of Christiania is in the south west corner, the vast majority live in the narrow strips of land either side of the lake.


37

CHRISTIANIA

Freetown Christiania, or simply Christiania as it has come to be known, is a small settlement in the heart of Copenhagen, on an area of state-owned

land. Part of the land was previously occupied by Bådsmandsstraede (an

old military barracks), with the remaining land part of a vast citywide defence system built by Denmark in the 17th Century to protect the city from the ongoing war with Sweden (fig#19). Once the military left the area at the end of the 1960s, it was occupied by locals made up of mainly

hippies, squatters and anarchists. This was at a time where Denmark, like much of the western world, was experiencing great social revolutions that promoted youth empowerment, individual freedom and political

experimentation. As time passed, the growing community was continually

ignored by the government and military until in 1989 liberal lawmakers passed the ‘Christiania Law’ which transferred all responsibility from the

municipality of Copenhagen to the state, effectively allowing Christiania to be self-governed.


38

Fig#20 The commune has, over the years, normalised and lost some of its hippy spirit, but not its uniqueness.

Christiania is a fascinating example of the informal as it is a modern

community built entirely from scratch, with no prior planning guidelines

or social restrictions, and with the inhabitants living there through choice

rather than need. In many ways Christiania could be described as a social experiment to see how a community develops if left without imposed

restrictions; certainly the authorities saw it this way when they passed the Christiania Law. What becomes quickly apparent however is that a

completely ‘free’ society will not forever stay that way. Society will soon start to develop rules that will shape its development. What are these rules

and to what extent (and how quickly) does this take place? Christiania can tell the story of how a community starts, how it develops, and then

how it is normalised. Where most communities take hundreds of years to undertake this process, Christiania has taken only forty.

When Christiania is referred to as a ‘freetown’ it can be misleading

and begs the question: what is free? Christiania might be free from

conventional Danish laws and the heavily restrictive city planning system


39

Fig#21 The centre of Christiania today: a well-organised community

but it is certainly not without its own systems and guidelines. As Alex

Bellos writes, ‘if there is a lesson to be learned from the world’s most enduring legacy of the flower-power era, it is that personal freedom is a difficult concept.’39

In 2004, a satirical, and often tongue-in-cheek, Danish documentary Den Halve Sandhed (the Half Truth) attempted to explore the notion of

freedom in Christiania. The journalists started to erect a small building in

the centre of Christiania but this was quickly halted by the local residents who angrily stated that one could not simply start building whatever they like. This, the documentary argued, showed that Christiania was not the ‘free’ hippie commune that the residents like to portray.

39 1996.

Alex Bellos, “Some Kind of Freedom,” The Guardian, September 25,


40

Allan Lausten, who runs the Byggekontoret (Christiania’s building office), confirmed, in an interview with the author, that the time has gone where one could simply just start building anything and anywhere they liked. In

fact, it is actually quite hard to get permission to build anything at all, or

to simply move to Christiania. In 1982 Christiania closed its doors making it ‘more difficult to join than the Garrick Club’.40 In a poll taken by Gallup41

about ten percent of Copenhagen’s residents would move to Christiania instantly if they could. That would increase the size of the community from 700 residents to over 100,000. So they had to find a way of managing who can live there – essentially starting its own immigration department.

Since Christiania likes to consider itself a free democracy its decision-

making takes place in community meetings where every citizen is free

to express their opinion. There is also a weekly news magazine called Ugespejlet where community matters can be discussed and debated

formally. Housing is redistributed via advertisements in the newspaper

but because it is a collective there are no financial transactions involved when securing a property; no one owns the land and you receive nothing

if you decide to leave. The formal world uses money to decide who can live in what area but, when there is no formal market, other deciding factors need to be introduced.

Christiania is divided into fourteen small, self-governing communities, with 20-100 people in each. From the applicants, each community will

decide whom they want to move into the empty house, via a series of 40 Ibid. 41 Gallup is an online research-based performance-management consulting company


41

interviews. The applicant needs to seek the approval of the community and

as one can imagine there is a large amount of social engineering that goes on. Although Lausten denies this is the case, the houses are often given to friends or family – people already closely associated with Christiania

ideals. People even work in local shops and cafes for years to stand a better chance of living there when an opportunity arises. Essentially, it is a highly protected closed community, much like the wealthy communities that

can be found in American suburbs; only this time, no money is involved. Economic values are replaced with ideological values.

R U L E # 4 : C O N S E R V E T H E C O M M U N I T Y  The community should be protected from change, and its character retained at all times.

For Christiania, it is important that everybody works hard to protect their special community. If it was open to everybody, or it allowed people who didn’t appreciate and share the unique values of Christiania, then it would

quickly lose its identity (Rule #2: Imitate, Don’t Innovate). The founders of Christiania and its new residents want freedom in the way that they live, to be able to do what they like, and not what the Government chooses

for them. But it is a double-edged sword. To protect the community they

must give up some freedoms, such as the freedom to build whatever and

whenever they want, and the freedom for anybody to settle in Christiania.

They must create rules to protect the ‘freedom’. And this dichotomy is recognised by the residents: ‘we are very, very conservative really. It’s very

ironic. At first the only rule was that you could do anything you wanted as long as it didn’t hurt anybody else. Now there are limits and rules.’

#4


42

Like the wealthy exclusive communities of the formal world, Christiania acknowledges that it works best if there is a shared community spirit. The inhabitants must care for the preservation and qualities of the place in which they live. It is not something which is exclusive to informal settlements but in all places where there is a shared community agenda. One must obey

the vernacular of the place, and not only in terms of aesthetics but also the

ideological and political vernaculars of the residents. And this can only take place where there is strong neighbourliness. This neighbourliness can sometimes be lost in larger communities and cities, such as London, where communities can be more blurred and shared values are harder to determine.

Lausten argues, however, that in reality everybody is selfish, even in Christiania. ‘Here’, he says, ‘there are 700 different dreams.’42 But unlike many communities, they all share a common dream, one that can bind

the community together. ‘Here we have a dream, and the current dream is to do whatever you want.’ He then adds, ‘as long as you respect your

neighbours’ needs’.43 But, this of course is a paradox. How can one be

simultaneously both free and also living by an unwritten code? And how

does Christiania make sure that this unwritten ‘rule’ is respected? A

similar philosophy exists in formal society, except the ‘neighbour’ is the greater community, and we have formalised, through writing, rules and laws that protect this ideology.

42 43

Allan Lausten, interview by author, February 21, 2013. Ibid.


43

R U L E # 5 : L O V E T H Y N E I G H B O U R  Every action should be undertaken in the confidence that it will not cause nuisance to others.

Christiania acknowledges that neighbourship is important. If the

neighbourship is good, the neighbourhood is good. If the relationships are good, the community is good. Though conflicts are not uncommon

in Christiania: ‘we have a lot of meetings; we are good at meetings. And we have different opinions and a lot of arguing.’44 Conflicts are dealt

with in this way, through constant meetings and discussion, in person

and through the Ugespejlet. The residents believe this is the best way to solve problems, and do not believe in calling upon the authorities when

agreements cannot be made: ‘we would never call the cops’.45 Instead, if there is a conflict which cannot be solved through community debates residents have an alarm system that will alert neighbours and the

community. In fact, the Byggekontoret have the power to physically evict

people from the community if the do not obey certain ways of living,

certain ‘rules’. Although they categorically do not believe in police, they are forced to become police themselves in order to protect their values and their community.

These rules, although many are not formalised through written law, are varied and extensive, covering many aspects of life within Christiania. Whilst the sale and use of marijuana has always been a part of the community, the

use of hard-drugs is strictly forbidden – part of Christiania’s Common Law 44 45

Ibid. Ibid.

#5


44

Fig#22 The only written ‘laws’ exist on Pusher Street to counteract the dangerous drug culture.


45

Fig#23 No Photos: another Pusher Street ‘law’. But harder to enforce.

(see fig#22). The legalisation of marijuana within Christiania has led to certain areas being run by drug dealers, which has knock-on effects within

the surrounding areas, increasing crime and criminal damage. Many residents oppose the use of drugs, with the problems that it brings with it,

and the ban on hard drugs exists as a counter measure to the drug culture

that fears to suffocate the relaxed lifestyle. When first entering Christiania one is met with a large sign declaring ‘No photography, No running,

No hard drugs’. Along with the Common Law, these are the only official ‘rules’ of Christiania and were created to deal with the increase in drugrelated tourism within the area. The most interesting rules, however, are

those that have not been formalised but exist throughout the community regardless.

One notable difference between rules which are written and unwritten is that one set are proactive and the other are reactive. Written rules

are nearly always negative. It is not about what you are allowed to do,

but what you are not allowed to do. It is much easier to agree on what

shouldn’t be done, than what should be done: to agree to disagree. The


46

act of formalisation requires specificity, which does not lend itself to the endless scenarios that a ‘positive’ rule might tolerate. Rules, therefore, are naturally preventative rather than permissive.

However, unwritten social rules tend to be much more positive, but can only really exist that way through their lack of formalisation. When asked whether Christiania will ever develop a set of formal rules, Lausten responded with a definitive ‘no’. A set of official rules would go against

the concept of the ‘freetown’. But whether they want them or not, they are forming regardless; from the simple rules on Pusher Street46 to the more complex system of community meetings that one would have to

attend to make alterations to your own home (the equivalent of a planning

application). There is even an ‘agreement’ whereby you cannot build over

eight metres along the protected waterfront. As a nationally preserved

area, due to its historical status as a 17th Century defence system, the state would like the houses removed completely. The agreement was put in place by the residents to limit the amount of development in the area,

and so protect their existence. This is an example of an the increasingly preventative rules that are being introduced as Christiania further

develops and starts to be normalised, moving closer and closer towards Copenhagen’s planning system.

One aspect of the community Lausten declares will never be limited

though is the style and aesthetics of the houses. ‘You can do whatever 46 Pusher Street is the main public road running through central Christiania, and where most of the drug related tourism takes place. The area is referred to as the ‘cold’ part of Christiania, whilst the residential neighborhoods are the ‘warm’ part.


47

Figs#24,25 Christiania: each house represents the individual’s taste but still retains the unique Christiania architectural vernacular.


48

Figs#26,27 Christiania: The local vernacular is, perhaps unsurprisingly, very different from the rest of the city.


49

Fig#28 Central Copenhagen: brick buildings with red tiled roofs and dormer windows

you want‌ there are many different solutions’47. That said, the residents are expected to maintain their house and to generally improve the area. An ugly or badly maintained house will soon be brought to the attention of the community. And whilst a lack of stylistic intervention may be the

intention, the houses of Christiania do maintain a certain vernacular

(fig#24-27). The vast majority are built from timber using simple Scandinavian construction technologies, with pitched roofs and charming windows. There is unquestionably an intentional ad hoc feel to the

community, where imperfections somehow portray their desire for the simple-life. A sleek, modern building could almost be guaranteed to upset

the community, and it is unlikely that a resident would even try and build

something like this anyway, since residents are guided by the construction office that deal predominately in timber. This does not rule out freedom of expression but there is a very strict unwritten code of conduct when it comes to aesthetics and construction. 47

Ibid.


50

As with the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, there are certain stylistic elements

being imitated and reproduced throughout the community (Rule #2: Imitate, Don’t Innovate) and in doing so, creating a clear community

identity (Rule #3: Create an Identity). Christiania has a style very unique from the rest of Copenhagen, which its predominately brick buildings and trademark red-tiled roofs (see fig#28).

But even though Christiania is a unique and very special community

that is being consciously preserved by the community, it is slowly but noticeably becoming normalised. This is through top-down changes (as the authorities try to integrate it back into normal society) but also

through bottom-up decision making within the community as they try to make Christiania a more liveable, efficient, and democratic community.

They have even developed an internal taxation system. No one pays rent in Christiania. Instead, each resident pays a tax to the community.

The money goes towards a large budget (£2.3 million a year is collected) divided up and distributed to the different community organisations; a

process that takes months of community meetings. In fact, the system is not too different from the way that modern democratic society works, the differences being the scale, and the pace, at which it is undertaken.

Since there is no profiteering in Christiania, time can be taken to reach every decision. A process that can either be viewed as highly efficient,

because it can reach the best outcome for all parties, or highly frustrating.

One resident, who eventually abandoned Christiania, described it as, ‘like living in a country with 800 presidents.’48

48

Bellos, “Some Kind of Freedom.”


51

The conclusion surely has to be that Freetown Christiania is, in fact, not

free at all. Through time it has developed much of the same systems, hierarchies and rules that exist in formal society. The human race is not

good without rules; people like rules. Ironically, rules must be created to protect freedom. Rules are a security blanket that allow people to be sure of

their future and predict exactly what their neighbour is going to do. Rules

ensure fairness and democracy so that everyone can benefit equally from the opportunities that arise within society. Christiania is not the anarchical society it may have set out to be, but a complex and well organised urban

organism, in a similar way to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. This, of course,

cannot happen overnight. In the same way as Black Rock developed over time ultimately leading to a set of rules, Christiania and other informal

settlements quickly realise that rules must be created in order to protect and improve their community. Some of these rules are written down,

but many are tacit, existing subliminally within the protocols of society.

As time goes on, and as more of these rules develop, Christiania will be engulfed within the greater formal urban system of Copenhagen, perhaps only leaving traces of its history with its unique architectural vernacular.

For most informal settlements this is a desired outcome, as with this normalisation and formalisation comes new economic opportunities, but

Christiania is different; Christiania lives by a dogma that is disconnected from formal society, but ultimately it will become part of it. Perhaps the

very fact they have got to this point through their own volition will be enough for them. Eventually the houses will move in line with Copenhagen’s

housing standards. Not because they are told to, but because the want to; that is an important distinction to make. Rules and standards, as discussed previously, are designed and created from the bottom-up, out of a need to

cement certain ways of living. Christiania has these exact same needs so


52

it is only natural that it will create an almost identical set of standards by itself.

What is there to learn from this model of self-government to help create a

better model for formal planning? In an interview with the author, Susanne Krigslund, a Copenhagen city planner, doubts whether Copenhagen as a city can learn from Christiania: ‘it’s like walking backwards and we cannot

do that.’49 As Copenhagen tries to move towards carbon neutrality50,

the authorities believe Christiania will fall behind if they are not forced to adhere to local policy. And that is true, in a sense. Copenhagen is one

of the global leaders in sustainability and strict codes are part of this modernisation process. Does this leave any room for Christiania, and other informal settlements, to inform policy-making?

In the UK, the Localism Act saw an attempt to localise policy-making;

seen as a liberation of the current top-down approach that is controlled

by a powerful central government. Will this make villages in Britain into

Christiania-like free zones? Or can Christiania teach us that localism does not necessarily produce deregulation, as hoped? If Christiania teaches us anything at all, it is that localism and deregulation are mutually exclusive.

Like many things, it may start as a liberal movement, but will slowly evolve into something else, once the people have decided what they want. By

cutting the red tape, it allows a new set of locally made legislation to be born, resulting in more regulation, not less.

49 Susanne Krigslund, interview by author, February 22, 2013. 50 By 2025 Copenhagen aims to become the first carbon neutral city in the world, as part of a green strategy for the city.


53

The anticipated benefit of localism is that each village, or each community can decide how they would like their village to develop. This might, in

theory, make it easier for the inhabitants to make changes and develop

more sensibly and more efficiently, without the bureaucracy and needless paperwork of a central system. What might happen instead, however, is that the community will, over time, try and insulate and protect their

community, suffocating growth and slowing down the planning process. If we are to learn from informal communities, an increase in the amount

of regulation can safely be assumed. Christiania ‘is proof that democracy

means bureaucracy’.51 It must not be assumed that deregulation would

result in a more anarchical state. That assumption would have to completely disregard human tendencies towards rule-making, even in their simplest unwritten forms.

And part of this comes down to a mistaken understanding of informality,

community and localism. Localism is about, at its most fundamental level,

allowing and encouraging growth. But do communities, beyond their own property lines, even want to develop? I believe it is wrong to assume that

macroeconomic growth is an objective of society. After all, as Wouter Vanstiphout said, ‘villages are very conformist places. Communities will

try to figure out how to lower risks, rather than heightening them.’52 And one way that communities do this is with rules.

51 Bellos, “Some Kind of Freedom.” 52 Darryl Chen, “The New Socialist Village” (Architectural Association, London, March 14, 2013).


54

R U L E # 6 : P R O T E C T Y O U R S P A C E  NO TRESPASSING

Take ownership of your belongings, property and any immediately adjacent land and make all boundaries clear.

Protecting or taking ownership of space is a practice that has being going #6

on for centuries. Even when simply setting up a campsite, people will

organise their tents in a way that defines the edges of ‘their’ space, part of a same process that can help define a community and conserve it.

Michelle Provoost, of Crimson Architectural Historians, witnessed this process taking place in Hoogvliet, a borough on the outskirts of Rotterdam.53 Crimson were involved in a project to design a small community of around sixty households in an area that was previously

uninhabited. The project brought people together through a shared passion for gardening and sustainable living, including a large shared

garden in the centre of the scheme. The residents, she discovered, quickly formed a strong community spirit and a sign was soon erected at the

entrance to the garden that declared, ‘No Trespassing’. This, Michelle argued, demonstrated that it was a successful community since they were

making a clear distinction between ‘them’ and ‘us’. By defining the edges of a piece of land the inhabitants are taking ownership of that area.

This process is even more important in informal communities where

there is often no clear distinction or threshold with the formal and the inhabitants don’t own any official title deeds to their homes. Where

there are less official forms of land ownership, people tend to be more 53 Michelle Provoost, “No Such Thing as Community?” (Architecture Foundation, London, March 13, 2013).


55

acute in claiming ownership of space. And perhaps it is also pride and

competition that drives this process (Rule #1: Elevate Your Status). Open-

plan architecture and public space are not characteristics often associated with informal settlements, particularly the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, where public space is limited to cramped alleyways and narrow staircases. Each

family take ownership of their small piece of land, defining the edges with solid concrete walls. Interestingly, the scale at which this happens is perhaps an indicator of the success of the community. People and families will naturally protect their individual space and individual homes, but

where it happens on a wider level it indicates that the inhabitants view the space as their community, and separate it from the surrounding area, often with a row of houses, a road, or wall.

In Copenhagen, the authorities see this as a problem. The inhabitants

of Christiania have increasingly cordoned off the community, creating a

division with the surrounding neighbourhood. They have even opposed a city-funded cycle bridge which would undoubtedly better connect

the settlement with the rest of the city. Christiania are defiant in their opposition, not wishing to relinquish any land, and would rather see walls built around the settlement to better insulate them from the rest of Copenhagen. In the eyes of the city, if Christiania is to better integrate back

into the formal urban landscape, the borders need to be removed and the

thresholds blurred. But if this happens, would Christiania lose its strong and unique sense of community, perhaps also losing some of its economic

potential? And of course, Christiania will always fight against this change,

confirming the view that villages really are conformist places. Darryl Chen, in his study of Caochangdi, an urban village in Beijing, agrees that clear

borders can have a positive effect on the village, a notion that would go against the trends of modern society where ubiquity and fragmentation of communities are commonplace.


56

Fig#29 Comparing China’s Organic Law of the Villagers and Britain’s Localism Act.


57

CAOCHANGDI

Caochangdi is an urban village54 located on Beijing’s fifth ring road, built

on previous agricultural land. As the city encroached on rural area, the

farmers extruded their land to create small apartment blocks. Due to their unique status the developments exist outside of Beijing’s urban planning regulations. In 1998, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei moved to the village, sparking

the birth of a new cultural and artistic community. And because of the semi-legal status of many of the buildings, the village shares many of the same characteristics as informal settlements (although Chen refrains from

describing it as such). Instead, in an interview with the author, he described the settlement as an ‘unstable’ and ‘insecure situation’ positioned between ‘top-down written regulation and evolved practice’.55 But it is essentially

informal, in the strictest sense, and according to our adopted definition. 54 Chinese urban villages are a unique phenomenon whereby rapid urbanisation causes small rural village to be surrounded by the encroaching city. The villages still hold rural status so exist in an almost autonomous state, separate from the surrounding city. 55 Darryl Chen, interview by author, February 14, 2013.


58

Figs#30,31 Stylistic innovations are copied by the local landowners


59

The authorities have a degree of tolerance with this kind of development

as the benefits the village receive from their profitable developments are

offset by their exclusion from Beijing’s official urban zone, which brings with it welfare and schooling benefits. China sees urbanisation as a huge

tool for economic development, with rural communities often ignored in their push for the economic expansion, leaving farmers very unhappy. By

allowing these rural villages certain privileges the government is seen to be ‘pandering to the rights of the farmers lest there be more unrest.’56

Because of the distinction from the formal urbanism that envelope them, the urban villages have very clear borders (Rule#6: Protect Your Space), much like many of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The strict village boundary

is a hangover from 1950s communist planning where a village was both a spatial unity and also an organisational unit for economic production. The distinct borders help with introverted economic development but also protect the community from being engulfed, and in turn losing its

identity and uniqueness. ‘The positive consequence is that it reinforces difference between inside and outside the village, fostering a zone of

experimentation. It intensifies locality and can potentially spark economic competition from village to village.’57

Chen makes the proposition that this could be reverse engineered and applied within Britain to help our villages become more economically

autonomous. He picks up on similarities between China’s Organic Law of the Villagers of 1998 and Britain’s Localism Act, both promoting self56 57 2012).

Ibid. Darryl Chen, New [Socialist] Village (Venice Architecture Biennale,


60

governance within the community. Should Britain learn from informal settlements to help recover localised economic production and revive its flailing high streets?

Chen also recognised what he identified as a ‘copycat culture’ where imitation prevails over innovation (Rule#2: Innovate, Don’t Innovate), leading to the creation of a Caochangdi vernacular style of building. Small

stylist elements, first employed by Ai Weiwei in his gallery buildings, are

then copied in subsequent developments throughout the village (see fig#30,31). The concrete and brick buildings, traditionally rendered with

concrete, were left exposed by the artist and now many farmers have done the same. One reason being that they saw the benefits in terms of time and cost, but another being the underlying social drivers that appear in

informal settlements that have already been described in Rio de Janeiro. Ai Weiwei sets stylistic precedents and, as a figurehead for Chinese art

and democracy, is seen as somebody to aspire to. Through imitation perhaps the landowners are trying to elevate their own status within the community (Rule#1: Elevate Your Status).


61

=

NO TRESPASSING

CONCLUSION

The simplest answer to the question, are there rules even in informal

settlements?, is yes, of course! Wherever there is urbanism, there are rules, whether written or unwritten, formal or informal – and the case studies prove this to be the case. In fact, where there is no written law, the

unwritten codes of society, the ones that all of us live by, are magnified. The term rule has been used throughout but it is, in fact, a very general term

and has been used to describe many different types of governance that exist in society. In fact, the rules that have been uncovered through this

research (see page 68) could almost be better described as practices. They describe processes rather than restrictions. They exist naturally in society

and within communities, sometimes even unconsciously. These rules are not intended to be a collection of directives but instead they represent a


62

code of conduct; a set of conventions that demonstrate how a community is organised and how it develops naturally, without intervention from a single authoritative body. And they are constructed from an individual and

personal level, rather than the typical macro-level of governmental policy.

However, in some ways, even though they are not intended to be reverseengineered and applied in a formal way to an settlement, it is my belief that

if a community behaved according to these planning principles, coupled with a moral code, they could replace a set of official laws. It is only when

the trust is removed from society that these rules breakdown and so need to be formalised and enforced. But perhaps it could never be sustainable.

In both Rocinha and Christiania in particular we saw the emergence and

increase in a more formalised style of rule-making, arising from the desire to protect what they already had. After all, ‘the goal of science has always been to reduce to complexity of the world to simple rules.’58 This is also

not to say that it would create a universally successful form of urbanism. The rules seem to work best on a small scale, so whilst it might create a successful village it may not create a successful city.

58

Lehnerer, Grand Urban Rules, 65.


63

Nevertheless, these informal rules or codes still represent the backbone

of how a community operates at its most primitive level. Rule #5 (Love

Thy Neighbour) is the most important of these as it is the basis through which every other rule can be upheld. It represents the trust that binds each individual to the community.

Importantly, it does not go as far as to say that each person is not entirely selfish and does not first try to satisfy their own motives. Instead it is based on the assumption that acts should, in some way, improve the community,

or in the very least not make it worse. Adam Scott, the 18th Century economist and philosopher, described the strange duality between the

community and the individual with his ‘invisible hand’ theory, which

is the ‘social mechanism through which each individual automatically

contributes to the welfare of the community solely by pursuing his own private objectives.’59 Or, as Johann Wolfgang said, ‘each sweeps his doorstep, and the neighbourhood stays clean!’60 For them there is no such

thing as public interest. But that only tells part of the story. The theory is

simultaneously rejecting the need for a rule such as ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ (an articulation of public interest) and assuming that each private objective

will still be of benefit to the community. And that assumption is strongly based on the existence of a moral code and a strong and structured society (i.e. the rules).

The problem that arises, if these rules are to offer an alternative form of

governance, is that, by the very nature of the process, they will become formalised. They have been unearthed through the investigation of the 59 60

Ibid., 78. Ibid.


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informal, and they are allowed to exist is because they are unwritten.

A codification of the informal would destroy the essence of the rule. Formalised rules are based on singular intent, whereas informal rules can

possess multiple meanings, complexities and interpretations, which allow them to be successful. This, ironically, results in the birth of the final rule: R U L E # 7 : D O N O T M A K E R U L E S !  All practices, conventions, traditions, tendencies, customs and norms should be strictly informal, and not enforceable through written law.

#7

Instead of official law and regulation, informal law should prevail; the laws of thumb. This strange concept is revealed in the history of English folk music. Vaughan Williams, the well-known classical composer, was a great

admirer of the genre. At the beginning of the 20th Century he travelled the country, transcribing and collecting folk songs, to both preserve them for

future generations and to inspire his own music. But folk songs, in their very nature, are informal; the music was never written down. It was

shared with families and passed through generations via word of mouth; mutated and adapted by each community. This continual refashioning and revision gives folk music its character and charm, often including personal

nuances, jokes, and profanities, which would have been neither relevant

nor appropriate for William’s audience. So, by transcribing the songs onto paper (which essentially formalised and fossilised them) the music lost its original meaning and could no longer be described as ‘folk’.


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And the same applies to informal rule-making. As David Knight said (in

interview with author), ‘the value of a rule lies in what is left unsaid rather

than what is said.’61 The danger in trying to use informal rules to inform planning and architecture would be that their very meaning could be

destroyed or changed through enforcement as part of a more formalised system. Their open-ended and suggestive nature would make them hard to enforce anyway.

The question still remains: how can the rules be used to offer an alternative to modern planning systems? Urban-Think Tank differentiate between two types of approaches: ‘you can focus in your plans on what

you hope to accomplish: best-case scenarios. Or you can focus in your plans on what you hope to avoid: worse case scenarios… the point is to

avoid catastrophe.’62 I believe the second approach is appropriate for these informal set of rules. Instead of a set of limitations they could be used as

a check-list to make sure that what is being proposed does not upset the natural processes of a community. It could be known as ‘Beginner’s Guide: How to Avoid Destroying a Community.’

I think the value of this study, however, lies not in the implication of the

rules but in their conception. Throughout the thesis various dichotomies

have been discusses: formal versus informal, order versus disorder, the individual versus the collective. But none are so pertinent to rule-making

as the relationship between freedom and constraint. What has been uncovered from the study of favelas of Rio de Janeiro and Christiania is that 61 David Knight, interview by author, April 5, 2013. 62 Brillembourg and Klumpner, “Rules of Engagement: Caracas and the Informal City,” 129.


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the absence of coercion does not necessarily imply or result in complete freedom. ‘Rules adjust the general degree of determination. Found within

rules, therefore, are certain freedoms. Pure freedom does not exist: at most we enjoy restricted freedoms.’63

Rules are the product of the city and their citizens. The city and its rules exist in a symbiosis that neither can escape from. Rules can never exist

without their context and the city is useless without its rules. The UK’s Localism Act is misguided in that way since it confuses deregulation with freedom. At best, it gives communities the freedom to create their own

rules, adding to the existing regulation. Real freedom needs a powerful

authority and strict rules to protect it, which itself is an oxymoron. As Thomas Vinterberg64 once said, ‘through rules, life becomes free.’65

63 Lehnerer, Grand Urban Rules, 15. 64 Thomas Vinterberg is a Danish film director who established rules for film production 65 Lehnerer, Grand Urban Rules, 64.


THE RULES


#1: ELEVATE YOUR STATUS Rio de Janeiro, Caochangdi, San Gigignano Every attempt should be made, where possible, to increase one’s status within the community.

#2: IMITATE, DON’T INNOVATE Christiania, Rio de Janeiro, Caochangdi Always use the existing community as a precedent.

=

#3: CREATE AN IDENTITY Christiania, Rio de Janeiro, Caochangdi The character of the community should be unique and instantly recognisable.

#4: CONSERVE THE COMMUNITY Christiania The community should be protected from change, and its character retained at all times.


#5: LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR Christiania, Rio de Janeiro, Caochangdi Every action should be undertaken in the confidence that it will not cause nuisance to others.

#6: PROTECT YOUR SPACE Christiania, Rio de Janeiro, Hoogvliet, Caochangdi NO TRESPASSING

Take ownership of your belongings, property and any immediately adjacent land and make all boundaries clear.

#7: DON’T MAKE RULES! English folk music All practices, conventions, traditions, tendencies, customs and norms should be strictly informal, and not enforceable through written law.



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BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTERVIEWS Brillembourg, Alfredo. Interview with author, February 12 2013. Chen, Darryl. Interview with author, February 14, 2013. Knight, David. Interview with author, April 5, 2013.

Krigslund, Susanne. Interview with author, February 22, 2013. Lausten, Allan. Interview with author, February 21, 2013. Madrazo, Felix. Interview with author, April 5, 2013.

Mirzahosseinkhan, Arezo. Interview with author, February 28 2013.

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Bellos, Alex. “Some Kind of Freedom.” The Guardian. September 25, 1996.

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Brillembourg, Alfredo, Kristin Feireiss, and Hubert Klumpner, eds. Informal City: Caracas Case. London: Prestel, 2005.

Brillembourg, Alfredo, and Hubert Klumpner. “Rules of Engagement: Caracas and the Informal City.” In Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives

from Latin America, edited by Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett, and Lea K. Allen. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010.

Brillembourg, Alfredo, and Hubert Klumpner. “Towards an Informal City.” In

Informal City: Caracas Case, edited by Alfredo Brillembourg, Kristin Feireiss, and Hubert Klumpner. London: Prestel, 2005.

Brillembourg, Alfredo, Hubert Klumpner, and Urban-Think Tank Chair of

Architecture and Urban Design, Zurich, E. T. H, eds. Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities. Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers, 2012.

Canham, Stefan, and Rufina Wu. Portraits from Above: Hong Kong’s Informal Rooftop Communities. Hong Kong: Peperoni Books, 2009.

Chen, Darryl. New [Socialist] Village. Venice Architecture Biennale, 2012.

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Christiania Dream (2006), 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuF3lPo3b8&feature=youtube_gdata_player.

Christiania Normalizing the Freetown, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =YubCY8xHhnM&feature=youtube_gdata_player.

Coalition Government. “A Plain English Guide to the Localism Act,” 2011. Conroy, Adam. The Evolution of a Commune. London: A. Conroy, 1994


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Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. Reprint. London: Verso, 2007.

Drakakis-Smith, David. “Third World Cities.” Financial Times. July 27, 2004, 2nd edition.

Edwards, Mark. Christiania: A Personal View of Europe’s Freetown. Copenhagen: Information Forlag, 1979

Guldin, Greg. What’s a Peasant to Do? Village Becoming Town in Southern China. Oxford: Westview Press, 2001.

Al-Hathloul, Saleh Ali. Tradition, Continuity, and Change in the Physical Environment: The Arab-Muslim City. Riyadh: Dar Al Sahan, 1996.

Hernández, Felipe, and Peter Kellett. “Introduction: Reimagining the Informal in Latin America.” In Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America, edited by Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett, and Lea K. Allen. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010.

Hernandez, Jaime, and Celia Lopez. “Is There a Role for Informal Settlements in

Branding Cities?” Journal of Place Management and Development 4, no. 1 (March 15, 2011): 93–109.

Ben-Joseph, Eran. The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making. London: MIT Press, 2005.

Koolhaas, Rem, and Sze Tsung Leong, eds. Great Leap Forward: Harvard Design School Project on the City. Köln: Taschen, 2001.

Kostof, Spiro. The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991.

Lara, Fernando Luiz. “The Form of the Informal: Investigating Brazilian Self-


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Leach, Neil. “Swarm Urbanism.” Architectural Design 79, no. 4 (2009): 56–63. Lehnerer, Alex. Grand Urban Rules. Rotterdam: 010, 2008.

Lutz, Wolfgang, Warren Sanderson, and Sergei Scherbov. “Doubling of World Population Unlikely.” Nature 387 (June 19, 1997).

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“New Challenges for Freetown Christiania.” BBC, August 15, 2011, sec. Europe. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14496193.

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Provoost, Michelle. “No Such Thing as Community?” Architecture Foundation, London, March 13, 2013.

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“Storming Denmark’s Drugs Stronghold.” BBC, March 19, 2004, sec. Europe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3524274.stm.

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Tusman, Lee. Really Free Culture. PediaPress, n.d.

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IMAGE CREDITS

Fig#1 http://historysshadow.wordpress.com/tag/autocracy/ Fig#2 http://coisasdaarquitetura.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/rocinha.jpg Fig#3 http://www.greggirard.com/work/kowloon-walled-city--13 Fig#7

http://www.bt.dk/krimi/politimand-trak-pistol-paa-christiania

Fig#8 http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/09/burningman-2012/100363/ Fig#11 http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandra_de_souza/ sets/72157627212640415/with/5910649280/ Fig#13 http://mlehman.wordpress.ncsu.edu/2012/11/12/8/ Fig#15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Capanema_Palace Fig#16 http://www.tuscanytastetour.com/products/pisa-and-san-gimignanoprivate-tour.htm Fig#20 http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article12963222.ab Fig#22 http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article12963222.ab Fig#23 http://travelswith.zen-aida.com/2011/01/culture/denmark-the-tamingof-freetown-christiania/attachment/christiania-pusher-street/ Fig#29 http://www.hawkinsbrown.com/studio/new-socialist-village Fig#30 http://waithinktank.com/category/cafa/ Fig#31 http://www.venicetakeaway.com/?portfolio=test3

Aerial photos (Figs#4,5,10,19) are taken from Google Images

Where images are not credited they are owned by the author



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APPENDIX

Interview with Susanne Krigslund

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Interview with Allan Lausten

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Interview with Darryl Chen

103



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22.02.13

INTERVIEW WITH: SUSANNE KRIGSLUND Susanne Krigslund is a Copenhagen City Architect

In terms of the history of Christiania, when it was originally formed, why didn’t the Government of the time evict everyone who had squatted there, and why not now? It’s political. It’s a former military area, and has been preserved as

a monument to the war times. It is built on part of a fortification of Copenhagen. It was a military area till the late sixties, and then when the

military moved away it was left on its own. In the late 60s and beginning of the 70s we had a movement in Copenhagen – student liberation and

so on and so forth. And some young people found it interesting to move

into the old buildings. Everything was left and nothing was going on and they occupied the area. That was the time, you know, when something like

that was possible. We had movements all over Copenhagen where young

people occupied the leftover housing that was going to be demolished. They moved into the buildings and I think that took place all over Europe at that time. And as time went by, the Government or the military didn’t

take action or throw out the people, so it developed as a settlement. In the

beginning of the 90s they adopted a new act in parliament saying that this

was a free area in Copenhagen. It has always been state owned and the municipality has not been the authority of the area for centuries.


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But I understand there have been discussions, whereby they are trying to integrate Christiania back as a normal settlement, and take on some of the rules of the state? Yeah, in 2004 we adopted a new legislation about Christiania saying it was going to be normalised. It was going to be an area of Copenhagen just

like all other neighborhoods in Copenhagen. And then they reintroduced common legislation. And it was first in 2004 that Copenhagen became

the authority of building regulations, planning regulations and so on in Christiania. But Christiania is divided into two parts; the blue area is a

normal neighborhood, and the white area is a fortification that is preserved by legislation. And that is what was reintroduced in 2004. Before that they

had abolished all kinds of regulation in the area, but they reintroduced it

in 2004 and the city of Copenhagen became the authority, but not it this part, because it is preserved. And it is a very strong preservation and it

overrules all over legislation. So this is administrated by the state and is still going to be so, although they have sold this part of the area to a fund.

A fund called ‘Free City Christiania’. And it is officially owned by a lot of prominent people – actors and scientists and so on. They have borrowed a lot of money to buy the area but they haven’t bought this one, and its still

state owned. And that is a challenge because if you ask the people living in the area say that the ‘warm’ area of Christiania, that’s where they live, is this part. This is the ‘cold’ area and it is ruled by criminals actually. You can notice that just walking around.

They call it the ‘warm part of Christiania’. That’s their own expression. So

actually most of Christiania, as you would regard it as a society, is this part

actually, and it’s still state owned. They have rented the houses in this area


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and in that aspect it is more normalised than it used to be because earlier it was just something you moved into. And some of the housing in this area is illegal, so who owns those buildings? Nobody knows?

Perhaps it is a question of time. But what is the general feeling in Copenhagen about Christiania? Do they like it? I think people like Christiania as it used to be. But what people don’t like,

and what they fear is the development in this area [Pusher Street], which tends to spread into the areas around. And that’s the drug dealers and

the criminals, actually. And the City of Copenhagen, we are very proud

of Christiania’s Freetown in Copenhagen and tend to brand ourselves as a city that can allow this type of settlement, but we are very uncertain about what is going on in this area. And actually it has caused us a lot of

problems. Consider the neighborhoods around. They feel very insecure because there is a lot of traffic and a lot of things going on in this area that

people feel very insecure about. And that is our worry, you know. What

is going to happen in this area? But you see, it’s a Freetown. And people

living in this area, they don’t want any dialogue. They want to be on their own, and they have developed this area almost on their own, and they are not very open to working together with the city of Copenhagen. But there is a dialogue now isn’t there?

But not between the people living in the area. There is a dialogue between the City of Copenhagen and the fund that owns this area.


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The building office from Christiania told me that they had entered discussions to demolish this building, and move that… But you see the City of Copenhagen is not part of that discussion. We are the authority of building regulations and we have the view that we cannot

treat this area in a different way from the rest of the city. Because we have

to deal with citizens equally. We cannot say to one man ‘you have a house, in Christianshaven somewhere, and in order to modernise it, then you

have to fulfill all the regulation principles in our legislation’ and then the

day after we say to someone in Christiania ‘you can do whatever you like’. WE cannot make that difference in our administration because people around cannot understand why he can do that and they can’t. So that’s our

challenge in administering this, so I don’t know what’s going to happen there.

Do you think there is an opportunity where we, as planners or architects, or you as the planning body for Copenhagen, can learn from some of the rules or unrules in Christiania? No, I don’t think so. As we have a common legislation in Denmark and that’s a part of our premise for developing the city. It’s like walking

backwards and we cannot do that. And why should we adopt that to other parts of the city, Christiania is something special, it’s a Freetown. And they have developed a certain appearance or style, if you like. And that is what is characterizing this area.


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In Britain, we had the Localism Act introduced a few years ago that attempted to give more power to the local communities to decide how they want to govern themselves in terms of planning, and maybe… But you have a completely different situation in England than in Denmark.

Of course, one of the aims of developing the city is to be very aware of the

local qualities and we try to promote that in our planning but you still have to meet the demands of the regulations in general. So the overall

legislation defines the borders of the possibilities. So of course, we are very interested in a dialogue with this area because now there is a local plan for the area. It is very old, it was made by the Government back in

1991 and it was developed when there was no legislation at all in the area, it was all free. And then the government said that we needed a framework to develop the area. And it is still the basis for the planning administration for the area, but it is totally outdated. And what we are trying to do is get rid of it because it describes the situation that no longer exists. The local

plan said that there can be no more development in this [green] area. It

says, ‘in future time there should be no housing in this area because it is a very valuable fortification, it is a very nice green area, it should be open to

everybody and so on.’ But you see they made a compromise because there is a lot of housing in the area. So they developed boundaries saying that we can allow people to live in this area. ‘We know that something is going

on, OK, you can have these areas and you can develop to some extent’. That was the situation back in 1991 but nowadays the state have made an agreement with the foundation moving some of the buildings along the

waterfront back into the fortification so it is not that visible when you look at it. And they have made some agreements about moving them to areas

that are not available according to the planning legislation. So it just shows


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that this is outdated completely. But we have inherited this plan and now we are the planning authorities and we have to act according to this plan.

So every time they made some new agreements and make an application

for moving houses we say no. Or we say its not allowed according to the plan, but we allow you anyhow. That’s the political decision. But it’s a very strange way to develop an area. So what we want is to get rid of this and maybe make a new one that’s more up to date about what’s really going to happen in Christiania. But the point is how much are they going to build,

because if they don’t want to build that much, but only to put an extra level on the house, or so on, then you can actually do it just by using the

building legislation. And then we don’t need a new local plan, because if nothing big is going to happen then just let us keep it as it is. And then the

state is still going to administrate this area, and the discussion between the people who manage the preservation out here and the people living in this area, that’s one part. And Copenhagen doesn’t want to be a part of

that discussion. The only thing is that we are going to allow new buildings,

because new buildings have to be according to our building legislation. So

that’s the situation. But actually when they bought this area, they bought the right to build 15,000 sq m of new buildings. And if they want to do

that as one or two big buildings then we need a new local plan, as this one doesn’t allow any massive development of this area.

What are the levels of legislation that exist in Denmark from the top all the way to the local level? There is a planning policy for the whole of Denmark and then we have

a state planning level and then a municipal planning level and we do an overall municipal plan, and then we do local planning. And local planning

is binding for the people who own the areas. That is when you really


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decide the future use of an area, into details. How big are these local plans?

A local plan can be for just one project, for a few houses, for the whole of

Christiania or for Christianshaven. There is no limit, it can be very small or be very large.

What is your role within Copenhagen? This department does local planning, and the financial department of the city to the overall municipal plan, so it is divided in Copenhagen. That’s the

situation in Copenhagen. If you go to another city or a big municipality then

you will find other constructions, but it is a political choice how you divide your planning system. All municipalities in Denmark have to develop a

municipal plan as a framework. And the municipal plan is binding for the municipality itself. The politicians decide what kind of development they want and then the municipal plan is used to show the citizens, the

investors and so on. This is the kind of development that we are pursuing in the city of Copenhagen. That is the role of a municipal plan. And then a local plan is when you are looking at every single area of the city. How do the local people get involved with the local plan?

Well it is a very important part of our planning, to involve local people in

our planning documents. We simply have to publicise it as a proposition

and then there is a public debate about it and then we sum up the reactions and put it forward to the politicians along with any adjustments, as a

result of the public debate. That is the procedure in Copenhagen. And the

way we involve citizens differs quite a lot as we are always developing


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the way we are involving the citizens in the plans, and it depends on what type of plan we are dealing with. We have city council but city council have decide that for each area of Copenhagen we have a local council, you may

call it that. But it is not an elected council, it is an appointed council. City Council appoint members for local councils and the local councils have

a purpose to secure a better dialogue between the city council and the people living in the area. So that the people living in an area or a certain

part of Copenhagen are allowed to discuss what kind of development they want for their area and they can put forward the plan for the part of

Copenhagen and they introduce it to the city council. And they look at it and say, ‘ok, that is somehow the wishes of the local area.’ And we can deal

with it as we are developing our formal planning in Copenhagen. And that is the way we deal with it.

If we are going to develop Christiania it is important to have a very close dialogue with the people living in the are, but also with the people living

outside the area. And I don’t think the people living in Christiania are

very aware of that. They think this is a piece of heaven in Copenhagen and ‘nobody except us are going to decide what is going on in this area’

so that’s why I foresee that developing a new local plan for this area will

be very difficult because actually they don’t respect the legislation and formal regulations and they don’t respect the authorities. So it’s going to

be a huge challenge to develop a new local plan and I’m not sure its ever going to take place, and maybe that’s ok. My personal belief is that I think it was a mistake by the parliament to reintroduce common legislation

for this area because it has been living without it for 30 years and a certain mentality developed in this area that makes it very difficult as a

City of Copenhagen to enter this area and say ‘you cant do that because you need permission from us to do that’. They simply don’t accept that.


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So it puts the City of Copenhagen in a very difficult situation because we have politicians that are very focused on, for instance, how we handle the citizens of Copenhagen. And the left wing they say ‘Christiania is very nice,

they can do whatever’ but the right-wing politicians say ‘they are going to be treated the same way as the rest of the city. It is nothing; Christiania it is just part of the city, and they have to live with the national legislation in this area.’ And we are hanging between and we have to make it function

and I think that is going to be very difficult. For the time being we are

keeping a very low profile in the area. We could walk around just like the

state has been doing for years, and looking every day ‘oh, they have started something new here’ and ‘this is not right, this is illegal’. But I don’t think we are going to do that.

When you say the state, what department is that? It is something called Bygningsstyrelsen, I don’t know what they call

themselves in English but its part of the state, I think its under the financial department of the state. And they are dealing with all the state owned

buildings and areas in Denmark. Because the military are completely out

of it, and have been for years actually. So now it’s the central administration

that deals with this area. They have spent so many millions in developing processes and trying to get along with the area and they have failed and

what they are aiming at now is to get out of this area. Their scenario is

it would be very nice if the city of Copenhagen would buy this area. For 1 Danish Kroner you can have it. But we don’t want it! We would not be able to develop this area according to the national legislation. It’s going to

be very expensive for Copenhagen. We would have to use a lot of people, working all night long, you know, to keep up with what is really going on in the area. And why should we? It is an attraction because it is what it is.


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Well, it brings people to Copenhagen doesn’t it? It does, and actually that’s quite a big problem for the area. But then again,

it makes a living for Christiania. There is, as you know, not an official economy in the area. The restaurants and the bars and whatever is going on in the area – they don’t pay tax, they don’t pay normal salaries and so on. And a lot of people working in these places, they work there because

then they make themselves suitable for applying to live in the area. So they have their own philosophy and their own values, their own way of

tackling central issues. And actually they are not sympathetic people to

work with, I am sorry to say. You know I am really pro-Christiania. I think

it’s a really nice place but I don’t like their attitude. I don’t think they’re

pleasant people actually. Some of them are, but it’s not that many actually. There is one argument that legislation is designed to help the

maximum amount of people, and if its not helping the people, then maybe it’s the legislation that should be changed, rather than forcing people to change. That could be your conclusion; it’s not mine, actually. What the legislation and building regulation aim for is to secure that buildings are safe. Now we are very much focused on sustainable development. So its energy

optimisation and to secure quality of the dwellings in Copenhagen. And in my opinion Christiania is not sustainable at all. And they are using materials

and heating that are way out in my opinion. So I think that, somehow, the city has developed but they haven’t noticed because they are living in their

own world. And they have the idea that they are very sustainable and they

are handling garbage in a very responsible way. They really feel like they are ahead, but now they are behind. And when we come and say ‘the way


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you are treating your waste water is not very nice, its too polluted when you put it in the water or get rid of it’ and so on, they just say ‘you damn

bureaucrats! You know nothing about life, you know nothing about this area, just get out of my sight!’ And that’s the kind of dialogue. Maybe we should learn how to deal with people like that, and I think that that will

develop in years to come, but it’s a very tricky business, you know. We have one major project in Copenhagen that is very high valued. We do a

lot of bike lanes and cycling in Copenhagen and we wanted to develop a

cycle lane across Christiania. Well bicycles and Christiania, that should be

a very happy cocktail! But it isn’t. We are developing a project where we are making a new bridge for people to walk or bike or cross the harbour

which will cross Christiania at the narrowest place. But it’s impossible. They don’t want it. Actually, what they want is not another way through

Christiania but to keep the people outside. And, you know, that doesn’t make sense in my view. I am so sorry if I seem a little bit negative. For five or six years we haven’t developed any common knowledge of anything.

In some countries they wouldn’t even ask. They don’t own the land so how can they object? You’re right, but no, I don’t think we are going to do that because we don’t

want to fight with people in the area. We don’t want to create any riot in Copenhagen because we have certain groups that just look for trouble and

we don’t want that. Plus, it’s not nice to create a bicycle lane that people

don’t like, actually. We know from everyday life in the city of Copenhagen, that every time you propose a new thing in the city there are people always saying ‘why is that? It’s okay as it is’. And that is the nature of development

and many sense actually. Okay, it could be nice if Copenhagen is green and

so on, and every time you introduce a new project that is going along that


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idea, then they say ‘ oh no, not here. You can do it elsewhere but not here.’

And that is the same reaction so, as a planner, to deal with this area, it is

somehow a little bit more complicated than dealing with the areas around, but the reactions are completely the same. They haven’t developed another

mentality. It’s another kind of settlement in Copenhagen but the people

living there are much like the people living elsewhere in Copenhagen. They want us to stay away and they want things to be developed around

their own conditions and that is a very human reaction. Nobody wants to be manipulated and everything new is very complicated. They are called NIMBYs in England.

Not in my back yard! We have the same expression in Denmark. For instance, it’s very important that this area stays open. That is doesn’t develop as a neighborhood in the outskirts of Copenhagen, with small

family housing and green fences around the properties. We don’t want that kind of settlement, but it is developing with fencing now. Everybody wants

to put up a fence around their house because they say there are so many

tourists and so many people walking around, we just need to mark our territory. We don’t want dogs to come into our house and so on. They are

all good excuses. But in my opinion, if you fence this area, then Christiania is dead, actually. And I think they have to be very aware about how they develop this area in years to come.


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21.02.13

INTERVIEW WITH: ALLAN LAUSTEN Allan Lausten works in the Byggekontoret, Christiania’s building office. He acts as the principle mediator between the community and the state.

What is your role within Christiania? My role now is according to this agreement with the state that the area

should be legalised and we now have contracts in the area, from being a squatter area to, not a normal part of the city, but at least a legal part of

the city. We still try to keep our self-government within the community, so even though we have always been a part of the town, we are our own neighbourhood here.

Do you make your own laws in Christiania? Sure, we do. But the thing is that in this agreement with the state we also

agreed that we accept their laws. So now we try to figure things out and

make them work, because the special thing here is that we live in a historic area. Christiania is built on a defence system around Copenhagen, so it’s

a very old historic construction, and in the mind of the state it’s very vulnerable, so they are scared that we will damage it, and things like this.


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So when the state makes contact with Christiania, whom do they talk to? This office? Yes. And for this project, I have been hired to do it. Now we try to find a new

path, to find a way through. They have their own habits, these authorities.

They say that’s the way it’s going to be, but here we have another opinion

about it. Because we like to do things our way, like we used to do. We have been governing this place for more than forty years now, and we still think we can do it in a responsible way, even though it’s a historic and protected area we live in.

Could someone come here and just start building? No, that time passed many years ago. Every day we have people coming here and asking for permission to build something. There was an

investigation made some years ago on Gallup where they asked the citizens of Copenhagen how many would want to move to Christiania, and about ten percent would move here tomorrow, if they could. And we are about

seven hundred people, so it was more than a hundred thousand people

who wanted to move here tomorrow if they had the chance. And its not only people from Copenhagen, because we attract people from all over the world. So, no, you cannot just move here.

So how do people move to Christiania? We have a weekly news magazine and there are advertisements in this. The whole idea is to try to change the habits of private property because

we like to have the idea that this is not a private property but a collective,

and it gives different opportunity and different frames to work inside. And it means that when there is some place free, because Christiania is

divided up into fourteen small communities, which are self-governing


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communities, with 20-100 people in each. And they take care of their own little area.

And they would actually select the people? They are the ones who choose the people, and they are also looking if there should be some kind of rotation. Because maybe there is a big place,

maybe there is a family who have grown and need a bigger place, and then there will be a small place free. It has not always succeeded but we try and

take care of these things. Also because these decisions have to be accepted. We are very aware that the neighbours have a big say in these matters

because the neighbourship is so important because this is the daily life, you know. When people have conflicts within the neighbourhood it is a

bad environment for everyone. So we try to be very aware it’s important that the neighbourhood is good and the relationship is good. It doesn’t

mean that you have to be friends or relatives but it does mean that you shouldn’t have a conflict.

If someone wants to change his or her house, or build an extension, is that possible? Well, sure. We are now in a phase where we don’t know what the future will bring. But if you have an idea, you talk to the neighbours about the

idea and then you go to a meeting in your area. In my area we have a monthly meeting, and then we will discuss it in this meeting. Now, because we live in this area here [points at map], because it is a historical area, we need to ask the relevant authorities for permission. That’s my job actually,

to try and find a way to talk to these guys. From their point of view, which

is very narrow, they have a hard time understanding that we would like to develop. From their perspective, the historical construction is more valuable than the fact that we live here. They would actually like to get rid


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of us, you know. It is going to be a long process, but hopefully we will find a good way to live with each other, but it might take a few years.

A lot of the buildings in Christiania look very similar. Is there an

unwritten agreement to retain a certain style? No, you can do whatever you want. If you walk around you may not see

everything because there are many different solutions. Of course, the blacksmith, he makes a house with a lot of iron and steel inside, and the

carpenters do it with wood. And this is the way. There are no frameworks or limits to how you can do it. Of course, when you speak with these

authorities, they have all kinds of ideas, because they are narrow-minded. But it is not the way it is here. It is going to be exciting to see how we are

going to find each other or even if we are going to find each other. I hope so; we have to!

And are there any restrictions on building heights? No, in the main part of town, there is a new construction with two new

floors being added to the old house. From our point of view, there are no

limits in this way. Of course, if you live in the protected area, we had an agreement that we should make it no higher than eight metres. That was

an agreement and we like to respect it. For us it’s not a conflict and we are living next to it. We like to show a kind of respect and we think you can

still experience the historical point of view even though we have buildings

next to it. But of course this is our opinion but it is not certain that the state have the same opinion.


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Do you think that one day you will maybe have some written rules about what will be built and what cannot be built? I hope not actually. What I hope is that we have a very loose framework, like height. We are on the way to making new houses. In the agreement we

made we should take some houses away but we managed to move them somewhere else. You can see that this process with the state has gone on

for about ten years, in negotiations with the state. And now we have come

to a point where we should find a new path for working together, so it is

very interesting where its going to end. From my point of view, and I think Christiania, we have an idea that ‘of course they should be involved, and houses should be healthy and fire proof and we can discuss the height, but

not the way, the materials. All these kinds of things we like to say this is our decision. We said that they had to respect the decision we made.

Every city started as a small village, or even a field, but eventually they grow, and this gives birth to regulation. Do you think that Christiania is just further down the timeline? Yes, somehow. But we built on a land that used to be military. There

had been roads here, and a certain infrastructure. We developed the

infrastructure with sewers and electricity and water and things like this. And some of the areas had these facilities and we just developed them.

We like to think that people should be able to do whatever they want. If they don’t want sewers in their own house, it’s their own choice. There is a public bath here, so you don’t need to have your own bath inside, even though in Denmark it’s a regulation that you should have a bath, and you

should have access to a toilet. And we said, no, there are plenty of public toilets, so if people don’t want to they shouldn’t have to, because we give people the opportunity to use these facilities. So in this way we have a


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different way to deal with it. There are two solutions. In my point of view it’s not needed that we should have these demands of people. It’s okay.

Do you think that system only works if there is a community sprit? If people were selfish it wouldn’t work would it? No, people are very selfish. There are 700 different dreams so they are not all like that. Here we have a dream, and the current dream is to do whatever you want as long as you respect your neighbours needs. Do you get many arguments and conflicts?

Oh! We have a lot of meetings, we are good at meetings. And we have very

different opinions and a lot of arguing. And we use the weekly newspaper to argue and then if you have issues you can speak to the neighbours.

There are many ways to deal with disagreements. And of course, the thing

is that we also go behind people’s lives because we have demands that you

cannot use hard drugs here. Now you notice we have an enormous hash

market, gangsters and all this in mind, but for us this is something that has

been developed to what it is today. But it has been on the basis that there

is no hard drug within the community, either selling or using. And they are

part of that agreement and they take this responsibility. If you are a user of hard drugs you will not necessarily be kicked out but you will be forced to go to treatment, and if you won’t you will certainly be kicked out. Who does the kicking out?

Me and the other guys [points to the other guys in the office]. We don’t call the police. We don’t believe in police, actually.


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But you are a sort of a police, as such. The police come here, but things are changing now. We have an agreement

with the state and we have transformed from forty years as a squatter

area when you couldn’t call the cops – they wouldn’t come here and if they did they would come some hours later with about fifty cops in baggy

uniforms. We would never call the cops – we have an alarm chain that we can call internally and in five or ten minutes you will easily have twenty

people outside your door or wherever you want them, you know. This is the way we solve things.

How come there is a rule ‘don’t run’ in Pusher Street? Because the only ones who are running are the police and they get scared when people are running as they think the cops are coming to catch them. Is it legal then to sell drugs on Pusher Street?

Yeah, yeah. Outside of Christiania it is illegal but inside it is legal because

you have to consider that these guys, it’s a little bit hard to understand – the ones cutting up the pieces and selling, they are local people. Only the

people around, many of them are from outside. So we have an agreement that if you are selling down there you should be local as that is the way that we can have some kind of connection to it and they accept our rules

and agreements. And as long as these people who are working there and in charge, as long as they are local people we have an opportunity to go in

there and change things and control things. Not control, but at least have

our opinion about it and they respect our opinion. They are my neighbours you know - their kids, they play with my kids and its maybe different but

for them, its just a job, and for me too. I don’t see them as pushers, that’s

just a job. And they go to proper jobs. They have days where they have


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a schedule. They have small communities within the stand. They have solidarity, so if one gets caught, the others in the group support them. Because you can suddenly lose a lot of money, and even though they are

criminal they try and take care of each other. Its quite well organised crime! We live with them in a peaceful way, although it’s hard sometimes.

Has there ever been a time when someone has just walked in and tried to start building? Oh yeah, many times.

There was a documentary made by DR2 about this… Yeah, but it was like provocation, and they succeeded. Unfortunately they found one of the guys here who is, not aggressive, but popping up like a troll, and they managed to catch this guy and he exploded on them. For

television it was perfect. But we know this guy and we all said ‘ok, that’s him – that’s the way he does it, that’s the way he always does it’ so nobody

is surprised but on television it certainly looked wild. And they used it politically as they said we are a closed community. You cannot enter; you

cannot just come and build. And we said no, but we made an agreement with the state that you shouldn’t just come here and build. And what was

happening was we were just trying to respect the agreement we made with the state. But he didn’t get access to tell that part of the story. It was not good television. The good television was when they got kicked out. Does anyone try and sell their land or part of their land?

No, you cannot sell, you cannot buy. When you move away you do not get anything, and when you come in you do not buy anything, you get it all free. You just have to pay your rent, that’s it. And of course maintain.


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Pay rent? You pay a rent to the community. Not rent, but you pay for your use, and pay

the community. This money goes to this office and goes to the children’s care, the culture part. We have a big budget, twenty million every year. And the residents decide where it goes? Is there a committee?

Yeah, we are starting the budget meetings now and slowly we discuss

where we should be spending the money. The strong part about our

community is that we pay, not a lot of money, but a certain amount of money and for this we develop the community. We try to maintain the

whole area – we have a gardener group who maintain the whole green area. And this office maintains infrastructure, like sewage and water and also the development of the infrastructure. We have all our infrastructure in a database – we are very well organised actually. Is sounds better organised that many cities!

Oh yeah, it is actually! And the thing is that what we do is that when we do projects here we don’t hurry too much. We try to arrange it so that if you

are going to make a new water supply… Some of the facilities here are old

and we have been collecting money to change the water pipes for instance, and then we say ‘well we are going to change this one, but what should we do in progress?’ Well, we should at least get new internet connection down in the ground as well, and maybe we should fix some of the sewers. All

these things, we try to make a project on more levels, often more than you experience when you go to other communities. You will experience that

one day they will dig for water, the next day they dig for electricity because they are so divided up and then don’t have a chance to communicate.


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But it helps when you are a small community. Sure. And we say that we are not in a hurry, we have to be well organised and spend our money in a good way. We are not in a hurry and that changes the habits about how you do things.


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14.02.13

INTERVIEW WITH: DARRYL CHEN Darryl Chen is an urban designer and co-author of TomorrowsThoughtsToday. Working in collaboration with Hawkins\ Brown, he was selected to exhibit at the 2012 Venice Biennale for the British Pavilion. The work is featured in the Venice Takeaway, an ambitious research project aiming to promote new ideas for UK architecture. Darryl travelled to the outer-Beijing village of Caochangdi, a thriving community where bottom-up opportunism meets top-down regulation. http://www.hawkinsbrown.com/studio/new-socialist-village

In what way is Caochangdi informal? I was trying to avoid the word informal in the whole project because that evokes something else – there’s a lot of scholarship on informality, as you are well aware.

How would you describe it, without using the word informal? What did I say? I said entrepreneurial, bottom-up activity. But it was also between top-down, written, planning regulations and policies, and

evolved practice. So there is a whole lot of stuff going on, and they have found a way of getting through. So in terms of urban development, it is quite an unstable, and in some ways, a kind of insecure situation they are

in. The condition of being ‘between’ which they are trying to make work for their own benefit.


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Why was Caochangdi left out of planning regulation, why was it an anomaly? Probably because it was peripheral – it is on the edge of the Beijing

boundary area – on the 5th ring road. This is the area outside of urban extension of the metropolitan area of Central Beijing, and left out of the

ten-year masterplan for Beijing, so when they update it, it will be included.

Caochangdi is in part of what was an agricultural village, which evolved into a built settlement of the fringes of Beijing, into a kinda urban place, where the villagers started building, within the last ten years.

The interesting thing is that the buildings tend to top out at four, five or six storeys, for whatever reason - we couldn’t really determine why that was, given that a lot of them are illegal anyway. From a regulatory point of view it’s a slightly grey area, because farmers have a right to develop their

land. That’s generally speaking for agricultural purposes. They miss out

on a lot of urban benefit, like welfare and schooling system in exchange for that. Acting essentially as a private market landlord is not what the law

was supposed to allow them to do. So they are kind of twisting it – plus the

buildings themselves don’t go through the normal regulatory process. You have go through a whole load of stages. There are building permits, land use permits, management permits – which are all stages of the planning and procurement process which you have to go through. So I think if they

went through those, someone would say ‘no, you’re not allowed to do that.’ On paper, it’s in contravention off the law, but the village committee don’t refuse this, or they don’t have a blacklist for demolition. I think its because

there is an economic justification for it. And this is all being down against a

background of macro-economic change in China. Eastern urban cities are benefitting, hinterland agricultural communities aren’t really benefiting at


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all. And there is a lot of politico-speak pandering to the rights of farmers lest there be more unrest. There is a degree of tolerance with this kind for development.

At which level? The village committee is the lowest organised governmental level, and that’s democratic, villagers elect other villagers to be part of the

committee. But the district councils, they form part of a larger sub-

district within Beijing, who they rely on for funding for infrastructure, for instance. They threatened to demolish it, but they haven’t done it. And

the more it becomes a consolidated area of good economic activity, the harder it gets to justify knocking it down, and the more high-profile it gets internationally as well.

And that is one of the things that is happening as Ai Weiwei has his studio

there since 1999. Big artists have been following him to set up studios and galleries there. There is a German gallery there, and now there is a whole

series of studios, some of them really big – whole complexes. Last year they were under threat of demolition, they had been given notice again.

They were half way through organising this big photography exhibition, and they decided to go ahead with it thinking that the more established

it is, the more high-profile, and the more people behind this, the more

government officials will say ‘well, its not in our interests to demolish it’.

One, bad PR. But two, from a pragmatic point of view – what net gain is there if they demolish it and just put some retail, commercial development

there? Maybe the same kind of economic level of activity? This is the kind

of art activity they are trying to encourage in other areas so why not let in flourish?


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The broad aims about encouraging entrepreneurialism within the communist system is accepted as a principle – getting the economy going

and giving farmers some kind of livelihood, are all sort of pretty fuzzy policy aims, but does not necessarily work through in what they write down.

What we found there is that the development happens within certain kinds

of regulations. Because our premise of the trip was to see how this could be transferred into a UK context. Now, if you don’t have an Ai Weiwei, if

don’t have the look and feel, and the demographic of Chinese farmers and

migrant workers in the village, then what do you take from this? So I tried to find out what the hidden rules were, in fact.

One of the interesting things about it was a hangover of 50s communist planning was that cities were divided into these work compounds – in organisational units for economic production. And the unit was an urban spatial unit as well. Which I think was borrowed from Russian planning, certainly the scale of them was as well. If you see new cities being planned

in China, they’ve got these massive urban blocks hundred of metres long.

It’s a hangover from this planning regime. So the boundary has been retained, and so by-and-large there is this idea that actually the village is

one spatial unit, which is not what London is about, where villages grow and merge and blend into one another.

No-one consolidates lots, didn’t seem like any one farmer asked his

neighbour ‘if you and I got together, we could build something even better than what we would build by ourselves, we could build something twice as tall. It seems like the agricultural plot system is still in tact, and it may be

for legal reasons that they don’t do it – it may be too difficult to exchange


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development lots. This means lot sizes are small. It is interesting for development in the UK where a big developer or a house builder won’t

be interested unless there is a plot of land of a certain size that fits with

their business model. Lot sizes are small – which might be to do with the fact that building construction is really cheap, they don’t seem to innovate a lot.

This lack of innovation is common in other informal settlements. In Caracas, for instance, the barrio buildings look the same, which is partly down to construction technique and costs. But do you think that there is something else going on where people like to copy what is already being done? Yes, I think so. There seemed to be little innovations going back and forth. When Ai Weiwei entered the village, he copied this concrete-frame-with-

infill pattern, so instead of rendering the cement render over the front – because everyone does that to make it smooth and simple – instead he

left it exposed. Farmers then said ‘you know what, we save on concrete render if we don’t have to do that. Plus, if we do it neatly it doesn’t look

too bad, because Ai Weiwei has done it, and the galleries have done it.

So let’s just try it out.’ And the little things that Ai Weiwei has done get copied in subsequent development. So I’m not surprised that it appears

in other places, because you are always relying on local trade knowledge and transferable skills so that local labourers can go for it. China is

technologically advanced, but there are cost-benefits to doing things in certain ways and they know how to build something quickly and easily.


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To gain permission to build something in Caochangdi do you have to go through any process such as a planning committee? We didn’t find that out. It was really difficult to find out that information and to be nosey about it. One guess is that the village committee know a

lot of people in the village, and if you are starting to build things then they would find out. But even if its not through a formal regulatory approvals

process, it is about people keeping the harmony with each other, and not going so high, not doing anything a bit different. And not upsetting the

natural balance, and building on precedence rather than assessing each application on its own merit. That is my own hunch. We did ask if there

was any height limit, and they said ‘no, but people just build to five or six storeys, that’s just what we do here’. In other words, there is a rule, but its not formalised.

It is interesting that you mentioning a strive to not ‘upset the applecart’. You see this happening in the poorer communities like this, but also at the other end of the spectrum, with wealthy communities such as the supposedly idyllic American suburbs, where if your garden is not looking nice, then you might get a sharp word from the neighbour. I think a lot of neighbourhoods rely on this social pressure. It’s all about

encouraging certain kinds of behaviours in order to regulate the way that

developments, or residents of a development, act. Or people in a certain neighbourhood build.

Does this depend on the type of neighbourhood? It wouldn’t happen in most places in London I don’t think. People are quite selfish in big cities, like New York and London.


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Yeah, but, I don’t know if this is the best example, but looking for

unattended bags and railway stations for instance. They just put the signs up ‘look for unattended bags’. Or providing little incentives for doing things in particular ways without there being formal regulations or a formal mechanism. You are relying on people to just pick it up and see it as there own benefit.

But it does need a community spirit to make it work, doesn’t it? This is why the research that is happening is really interesting, because it doesn’t presuppose that there is a community. It is treading the line between creating a community and manipulating and regulating a community that is already in place. It is actually saying, if you make people

do things, then they only need to be half formed to be a community. It is like making mandatory insurance policies with optional opt-outs instead

of optional opt-ins. You can see that the net effect is exactly the same. If you want to be in it, you’re in it, if you don’t, you’re not. But actually, what

it will result in, is more people adopting it that not because you have just

gone slightly one way in the balance of things. So it’s a government policy research initiative but I’ve heard someone talk about it in terms of urban development.

Do you think that these things tend to happen in weaker states - is there more self-governing where there is no government? I think the most interesting research on this formality, is the exchange

that happens between what we previously called developed and emerging

countries, or first and third world cities. The research that Saskia Sassen is doing reinforces the notion that there are global cities and there will always


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be global cities even in an internet age that promised horizontalisation of

cities. But what has happened in global cities is asymmetric distribution of wealth. So you will attract both bankers and kitchen hands, and office cleaners. And the two go together. Its not a matter of the office workers and the financial industry is going to take over and everyone’s a banker. Everyone is attached to that, and it goes all the way through the food chain. But that also gives rise to informal economies that happen within places,

so the illegal door-to-door DVD selling in Hackney, crime-networks, human smuggling. Cities have just diversified and irregularised.

It is interesting that you do not want to use the term ‘informal’ to describe Caochangdi. Yes, but I guess it is because of this transferability of phenomena that you cant describe as an informal place, or necessarily as a developed economy.

China as a country is really irregularly developed. And classing London as a place that can learn from China. That axis was more interesting to me, than the North-South axis or an emerging economy. Something I also did

was compared the planning frameworks, because the hunch was finding

a quote from HuChing Tao “We need to give local people powers, and we are going to decentralise government” and to do that sounded like Big

Society. The governmental system is quite top-down, even though there

are consultative measures built into that, but it seems like the focus in

Big Society was the local community or neighbourhood council, or parish. In China’s democratic reforms, they were starting from villages first and so there was an interesting thing that was going on. You had top-down,

you had it appearing on international art market radars, you had local

economies you had the hangover of communist spatial structures, and then you had all these bottom-up activities. So a whole mix of things happening


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which seemed like David Cameron wouldn’t be too averse to that actually, if that was happening. And you sort of muddled your way through. I think

Big Society was always going to be muddled through at best. Every kind of initiative to inject activity into it seemed to be met with a whole lot of

criticism. “Were going to make available this pot of money”, and people

were like “Oh, well how is that going to work?” and “how are you going to

distribute it?” and that kind of thing. We’re going to give people powers to draw up neighbourhood forums and now it’s emerging that there are

all these rival micro-local politics happening. There is a neighbourhood

forum started in North London that other local people are saying is a front

for certain local politicians and their organisations to make governmental change. And they are using it just as an instrument to ‘do politics’. Whoever

thought that creating neighbourhood forums was not ever going to be

a lever for local politics were being kind of naïve, because it was always going to be like that. It seemed like those kind of local politics aren’t

invoked at the level of the village at Caochangdi, possibly because you are surrounded by ring roads on all sides and its actually an element of selfcontainment within it. So maybe self-containment actually puts all that

stuff aside. I was thinking if people drew up strict, rigorous boundaries it would create rivalry, in a good-competition kind of way, as opposed to

‘lets negate action’ kind of way. I like the idea that your village becomes a new kind of economic unit; it’s not just about Shoreditch hipsters and independent coffee shops. It’s about medium scale and locating a village

on a global circuit. I saw Bicester Village come up on a Chinese Tourism

website, top five-day trips from London: Cambridge, Oxford and Bicester. If you took the principle, but it wasn’t international chains, and American style malls, like Bicester. But keeping the idea of a village as an economic powerhouse, then what could it be?


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This is saying, ‘whatever those ideas rules were, can we actually deploy them to do something else, its quite interesting. Because if you keep lots

small you put a ceiling on the economic capacity of the renter, so a Barratts wouldn’t be interested, and IKEA wouldn’t be interested, but a small-time

local entrepreneur who has a couple of shops or a mid-sized business probably would be interested.

So you are effectively reversing the rules, and using them to establish more growth. Yes, so when you go to Rio or to Caracas, you could leave the crime and the exploitation behind, and bring all the good things. My annoyance of Urban

Think Tank, and Justin McGuirk getting the Golden Lion award at the

Venice Biennale, was just the documentation of something. And loads of people are documenting this stuff, and its cool stuff. The challenge is how you make that relevant – the way we do things as planners and architects.

That’s the key question that no one has figured out. And I would say

that’s the criticism of Jane Jacobs as well. Sure, Greenwich Village is lovely

because it has evolved that way, but if you had to do something, if you

had to design something. What is Jane Jacobs’s design, what is Richard Sennett’s design? He criticises cities for being an imposition on a local economy. Ok, you do something.




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