Constructing Informal Places: The Dignity of Shelter

Shelter | Written by Tamar Partamian, USC

Peter Kellett’s article “Constructing informal places” reminds me most of the motive of the Shelter Blog.

In this article, Kellett describes a place as an environment through which one marks their settlement on their own “independent of external controls or professional advice.” Secondly, Kellett explains that construction and occupation occur concurrently and third, that these places are zones of dynamic change with extremely creative progressions based on materials available. A self made home holds a sense of pride, self esteem, achievement, and independence in that there is no landlord or contractor dictating how a person should be living in the given space.

Image of Dharavi from Planetizen via Flickr user Mumbai Magic

Now, a home that is found within the confines of a cardboard box or under a banana leaf may seem to anyone living in the better part of the first world as a punishment in and of itself, but for people that have had to live in these conditions it becomes a blessing in disguise. Evidence of such can be seen in slum cities such as Dharavi, India where the residents have freedom to build up their “property” as much as they like, save there being someone willing to purchase the “land” above them, or opening a store in the front half of their toolbox home, without having to be concerned with purchasing an office or store strictly for this purpose.

There is a micro economy located within each city block and there is no way of recreating such an environment in the common world as we know it.

This just goes to show that shelter and place are not only zones of physical comfort, psychological safety, and a separation from the outside world but rather how one manages to use the space.

Any space can become a place based on how one maneuvers through it, and through the rituals practiced within its confines.

A person can live in a cardboard box, or under a banana leaf, but as long as they can gain a ritualistic relationship with the space, they have the opportunity to create a place within the space (no assembly required). The feeling of a space within a cardboard box, a wooden shack, and a multistory mansion can easily be the same based only on a person’s ritualistic relationship with the space.

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Thanks to Lauren Matchison, lecturer at the University of Southern California and architect at Lauren Matchison, Architect for inviting her students to submit posts to the Shelter blog.