With the enormous increase in the population especially in urban areas, we are struggling to find a humane solution to the overcrowded, temporary, and erroneous spaces one third of the worlds population is living in, the slums. Throughout time we have made many attempts at “helping” these people, but it usually ends up destroying their homes, displacing them, forcing them to again, fend for themselves, creating more of a problem than was originally present. But what can professionals do to design for these people, when the shiny skyscraper or clean beautiful city is what we envision ourselves to design.

This is unfortunately what happens a great deal of time, slums are cleared for this expensive great design, in the name of capitalism. This doesn’t have to be though, we can design beautiful things as we want, prove the capitalists wrong, provide a wonderful environment where slum dwellers can create an economy and make money, and help the people live overall better lives. It has been done, and is highlighted in the book Design With The Other 90%: Cities.

Most of the projects outlined in the book are an attempt to provide a framework for success, in other terms giving them a compass or simply pointing them in the right direction, whispering, this is the right way to go. This method provides the framework of the formal, that we believe works, while still providing the means to construct and design the way the people in slums have been accustomed to; piece by piece, typically with found construction materials.

In the chapter Designing Inclusive Cities, Cynthia Smith tells a man she interviewed from the slums that she intended to “find successful design solutions to rapidly expanding informal settlements”, she then goes on to explain that the most promising of these solutions, “were hybrid solutions that bridge the formal and informal city.” (1) Though she claims these are hybrid solutions, I can’t help but understand them as infusing the informal with the formal, rather than a true hybrid, examples of this would be bringing bank loans and social security to those living in the slums of Bangkok (2).

Other solutions such as registering and providing brightly colored and numbered vests to drivers of illegal or unregulated motor-taxis allows the demand to be met for cheap transportation in the slums.(3) This solution seems much more of a hybrid solution than and not simply providing what we deem necessary things like social security and bank loans (thought probably very help for those living in slums).

Participatory planning (similar to the “kit of parts” or “framework” discussed in paragraph three), another great solution to conquering the slum’s problems. In Diadema in Brazil, by the use of these participatory planning methods, its citizens “drew up plans and allocated the resources necessary to drop the murder rate from 140 per 100,000 to only 14 per 100,000 in 10 years. (4)

Another strategic example, not necessarily participatory but one of linkages, was the design for a cable public-transportation system in Medellin, Columbia. This solution allows those living in the poorest neighborhoods to travel safely and gain access to the infrastructure (libraries, business centers, schools, medical facilities, etc. provided in the more wealthy areas of town. (5) This holistic linkage solution allows the city to be incorporated into one united body rather than the slums acting as a parasite to the wealthier portions of town.

These examples attempt to incorporate the slums rather than shun them which is typically the case.The infrastructure most of us take for granted that provides us with knowledge and stability are finally being provided to those who are hard-working but destitute.

1) Cynthia Smith. (Designing Inclusive Cities), Design with the Other 90%: Cities. P. 13.

2) Cynthia Smith. (Designing Inclusive Cities), Design with the Other 90%: Cities. P. 13.

3) Cynthia Smith. (Designing Inclusive Cities), Design with the Other 90%: Cities. P. 13.

4) Cynthia Smith. (Designing Inclusive Cities), Design with the Other 90%: Cities. P. 16.

5) Cynthia Smith. (Designing Inclusive Cities), Design with the Other 90%: Cities. P. 16.