ABSTRACT
Squatter settlements are built quickly, in order to take advantage of the scarce materials and spaces available. The slow deliberation of plans, orientation and views are luxuries that are not available to the builder. The modern architect and the informal builder have different aims – the former encourages the single, the stable and the iconic while the squatter will want pluralistic, the informal and the everyday in design. Habraken says, ‘In this new situation, unspoken ways of ordinary environments must be articulated. We cannot revive the naïve past. We dare not promise an unrealizable future. But to make peace with our task of designing the ordinary we must seek more intimate knowledge of it … Anew, we observe what always has been with us – not to discover, much less to invent, but to recognize.’4 In the following sections, I describe and evaluate different techniques and tools that have been used in observing and recording the soft city.
