“Practices of the Global South – Urban informality and the challenge of slums” is a seminar course conducted at the Syracuse University’s School of Architecture.  The seminar has been taught twice – Spring 2012 and curerntly Spring 2013. 

The goal of the seminar is to broadly study urbanity in the global south with a focus on the urban informality in its various manifestations.  The course equips students with an overview of the various social, political, and historical attributes that affect urban informality, focusing on an understanding of various strategies employed by architects, artists, and other agents. Students examine how architectural agency is being deployed innovatively toward generating a new and progressive model of architectural practice.  In doing so, the course traces the broader history of policy and knowledge in the field – from slum clearance to slum intervention, upgradation and in situ slum ‘networking’.