...In SLUM UPGRADES and other forms of URBAN REGENERATION, it is often necessary as well as beneficial to harness the capacity of people to build for themselves.

Problem-statement: Often residents of informal settlements do not have the capability to build all at once, or with the services of builders or contractors. Nor do they have the capability to buy existing homes.

* * *

Discussion: The simplest way to handle this challenge is a practice that goes on around the world every day: people build for themselves. There are many advantages to this practice. People know best what their own needs are, and know when they are able to devote the time and expense to construction. They also tend to produce more unique and creative results.

Of course, there are drawbacks too. One of the most important is simply that individual residents may not have the skill to produce a good quality building that is attractive, functional, or perhaps even safe. They may run afoul of many regulations designed to protect the life and safety of residents and visitors, as well as the interests of neighbors and the public in a supportive contribution to the public realm.

Yet there are many examples of self-build structures that are very beautiful and successful. What is needed is guidance, in the form of design resources, assistance, instruction, training and the like. This can be provided at the local level by those who today may be trying to stop self- build schemes: building inspectors, plans examiners, and other building authorities.

Self-build homes, businesses and public realm in Rose Town, Jamaica.
Self-build homes, businesses and public realm in Rose Town, Jamaica. © Steve Mouzon

Therefore:

Provide resources for people to self-build their own homes and other buildings incrementally, as they are able to afford the construction and have the time.

* * *

Provide for the skills needed in the NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING CENTERS, including pattern language resources and ENTITLEMENT STREAMLINING...

Design Patterns are easy-to-understand, easy-to-apply rules for creating human buildings and cities. They provide the long-term antidote to recent trends such as cutting down urban trees, creating heat islands, and erecting glass-and-steel high-rises. Rising temperatures in such urban environments threaten the population catastrophically. Violating patterns makes a city highly fragile, establishing a dangerous reliance upon imported energy. Systemic problems cannot be saved by industrial-technological fixes, but by efficient and climate-appropriate design that implements smart thermal planning (shading devices, earth-sheltering designs, etc.). Our cities will survive only if their structure follows patterns.

Mehaffy, Michael W., Yulia Kryazheva, Andrew Rudd, and Nikos A. Salingaros. A New Pattern Language for Growing Regions: Places, Networks, Processes. Portland, Oregon, USA: Sustasis Press, 2019.

Creative Commons License: Share Alike by Attribution https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode

In a special agreement, Sustasis Press has given Architexturez the rights to present twenty of the eighty new patterns from this book, for the exclusive use of architecture students in Asia. These patterns are relevant to a new era of urban challenges, meant to complement the classic 1977 book "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander et al. The new book "A Pattern Language for Growing Regions" implements the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, including the need for urban resilience, sustainability, and quality of life. The publication of this volume also launches an online pattern language "repository", developed in collaboration with Ward Cunningham, the original wiki developer and pioneer of pattern languages of programming.