1.0 background 

Drawing on a variety of sources - from Bernard Rudofsky’s Architecture Without Architects to Valeria Federighi’s The Informal Stance: Representations of Architectural Design and Informal Settlements, I’ve begun to approach questions of globalization and localization and their connection to alternative architectural development. Local problems have deep roots in global issues, and the design field participates in both the creation and solving of these dilemmas. Community organizers often rely on residents themselves as forms of both institution and protest (i.e. community gardens, carpooling and ride shares, and community technology centers) rather than government-run welfare systems. In my thesis, I want to connect with neighborhood residents and materials from local industry to incorporate a new relationship between economy, waste materials, and architecture. Primarily, I will be looking at the example of informal development as precedent for developing a reciprocal relationship between community and industry.

1.1 the two-way street of globalization

Leading topics throughout this thesis research stem from the core topic of globalization, particularly neoliberal globalization, and its forms and ramifications across economic communities. As a model, neoliberal globalization promotes free trade and unrestricted markets. In terms of climate change and global waste, industrialized countries like the United States are in a position of generating waste and destruction that other, poorer, nations are left to feel the impacts of. Policies and trade agreements like NAFTA exacerbate the imbalance of production, consumption, and distribution between the developed and developing world. While large private corporations thrive under these governances, these zones of massive industry development - including maquiladoras on the Mexico/United States border - have innumerable environmental and societal repercussions. If we are to reap the economic benefits of globalization, what costs are we accumulating in turn?

Rather than supporting the antiquated model of reaching out to struggling economies with design and technology developed in first world countries, I am a strong proponent of adding informal design techniques to the formal sphere’s architectural vocabulary. In this way, the detriments of globalization are met with the open-source sharing of low-impact strategies. 

1.2 the new vernacular

Vernacular has long been given an ancient connotation. However, in a globalized world, local and abundant resources are not always natural, but encompass industrial and man-made waste. This waste is present globally. Vernacular architecture comes from available materials - what used to be abundant local natural resources has now transitioned to industrial waste, as climate change and globalization exacerbate the poverty of nations.  

Informal and formal design are not two sides of a dichotomy, but two varying and interdependent approaches to development. One example of this fluidity is refugee camps. While first developed as emergency, temporary shelters, continuing global crises make refugee camps much more of a stable fixture than governments may intend. According to architect and activist Ai Weiwei, the average length of stay in a refugee camp is twenty-six years. Currently, in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine there are approximately five million refugees spread across sixty camps. Similar to the rigidity of military camps, these areas were originally formally developed by governments, but have since informally grown to survive as complete cities. New structures following a completely different method of growth populate these camps. These spaces are entrenched in both top-down structure and informal advances by refugee communities. 

The private sphere, as well, has breached this overlap throughout different times of economic strife and success. During the Great Depression, flour companies would package their products in bright colors because it was common knowledge people were using flour bags as clothes. By reaching out to their users, the flour industry entered the world of clothing production and planned product upcycling. Similarly, in 1963 Alfred Heineken released a prototype for the WoBo Bottle, a new shape of beer bottle that was rectangular and could double as a brick after its initial use as a beverage container. These types of localized interventions in industry and recycling are important precedents for my thesis. As Christopher Alexander stated: “When you build a thing, you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world about it, and within it, and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature.”

1.3 localizing informality 

The beauty and core of both vernacular and memorable architecture is its connection to place. While architecture is inherently tied to construction, this is not the only industry for design to connect with. Many spaces connect to the local economy in construction employment and even material sourcing, but rarely through the byproducts of cross-industry materials. 

My design intent is to aid the transition for businesses from mass production to localized community development. Local interaction is a necessity for socio-economic development, due to the nuances of each community’s businesses and changing demographics. In the public sphere, examples of governments engaging with the knowledge and network of the informal are particularly present in Latin America. 

In Curitiba, Brazil, Mayor Jamie Lerner worked with commuters to develop the Bus Rapid Transit system that many North American cities have used as a model for public transportation planning. In addition, Lerner made accessible education a priority by facilitating the creation of public libraries on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis, rather than top-down imposed planning. In Bogotá, Colombia Antanas Mockus worked with neighborhood leaders to address issues including water usage, homicide rates, traffic accidents, and sewage access. Mayor Sergio Fajardo is famous for his work on the Medellin Project, which transformed the city with bottom-up informed policies. 

These upward movements of informal practices are not anomalies, and should be fostered within the formal design sector and invaluable knowledge. Co-production between the informal and formal sectors are necessary collaborations needed in the twenty-first century to ensure environmental protection and fair community representation. 

2.0 project

Although what I’ve outlined thus far is based in theory, my goals for my thesis are to connect to local reality, and explore the development and social innovation San Luis Obispo is capable of. My goal is to reference informally developed areas and societies as precedent for facilitating highly localized reciprocity through bottom-up methodology between industry and community in San Luis Obispo.

This methodology is based in making a creative transformation in communities without gentrification and other neoliberal methods of change. There is a great precedent of facilitating and supporting informal development, led by thinkers like Marty Chen of WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing) and Kyong Park, architect and founder of the International Center for Urban Ecology (iCUE), and witnessed in Yona Friedman’s Spatial City and Paolo Soleri’s theory of arcology. 

The informal and formal are not mutually exclusive or dialectically opposed as the binary suggests, but are manifestations of varying levels of wealth and power. Rather than stealth design, demonstrated by Guerilla Architecture, my goal throughout my thesis is to prioritize transparent collaboration between industry and community.

2.1 concept

This thesis exploration centers on the restructuring of local upcycling systems, working with local industry to analyze the framework of both waste and community engagement. I’ve researched this concept in regards to my own work to produce more equitable architecture through meshing the power of an institution with the specialized knowledge of community members. My goal in working with local industry is to reframe both waste and community engagement in order to impede the societal and ecological entropy that has already begun (in no small part thanks to neoliberal policies).

What the architectural sphere needs is alternative development methodology, one which subverts zoning to engage with mixed-use and changing material use across time. Without structural changes to the current system of industrial waste creation and disposal, the climate crisis will continue to devastate our planet. This project is an antithesis of the International Style, both celebrating and defending the resourcefulness and resilience in informal development. . I do not mean to romanticize the challenges of living in an informal city, and the multitude of struggles that come with this, but rather I am interested in how everyone has the chance to be a designer, and the fact that the opportunities for design are everywhere. 

2.2 procedure and methodology 

A key element of my procedure is acquiring and using highly localized demographic research, as well as communicating directly with community members to hear their self-assessment of needs and community inadequacies. 

I will be looking into working with local industry, primarily manufacturers like Trust Automation, as well as newspapers such as the SLO Tribune or Santa Maria Times, other industry production and byproducts, and salvage yards. 

This type of architecture is both a response to community members’ subjective perception and a creation with relevant local materials, bringing phenomenology into a project at all stages, not only in its end result. These following designs do not present a one-size-fits-all solution to be globally deployed, but a methodology that requires and thrives on local connection and engagement.

2.3 relevance

It is my primary belief that humans and cultures are resilient - that they find ways to do what they need to survive. Rather than add to the historic precedent of architecture that defends against the public, I see this thesis opportunity and the education I have as a chance to facilitate an architectural approach to social problem-solving. My design ethos is centered on embracing and supporting these endless efforts. My love of architecture stems from the intricacies and vital importance of community-based design. This thesis exploration is grounded in the duality of research and action not just for instances of informed design, but for a lasting change in the field of urban development. Bottom-up development isn’t solely a matter of architecture or design, but of citizenship and ownership.