Lessons of Informality
Heisel, Felix and Bisrat Kifle (eds.) (2016). Lessons of Informality: Architecture and Urban Planning for Emerging Territories – Concepts from Ethiopia. Basel: Birkhäuser.
Never before have cities been so important. Today, cities are home to the majority of the world’s population, accommodate most of global production, and are the goal of millions of migrants around the world. Yet, increasingly, our cities are growing informally, planned and built by non-professionals. Informality resembles an evolutionary process more than a simple absence of rules. In itself, informality is neither illegal, nor dysfunctional, nor indicative of poverty; in fact, its actors, skills and capital are probably our best chance to solve the world’s growing housing crisis.
The book includes a DVD of _Spaces, a series of six documentaries on informality in Addis Ababa.
