ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the design components that facilitate deployment of the IA approach. These components work in concert to spur the growth and transformation of new informal settlements. To facilitate its implementation, the IA approach deploys a simple set of generic design and spatial/morphological strategies. In essence, the components are the IA initiative’s toolkit or lexicon. They take advantage of informality’s dynamic nature to steer the growth of sustainable self-constructed cities. IA’s design components offer an array of urban ecologies that are not often found in either informal or formal cities. These design components can be organized into three general categories: Corridors, Patches, and Stewards. Each category has a strong influence on the spatial organization and performance of the host urban system. The simplicity of this lexicon is agile enough to deal with various scales of intervention all at once. Design elements then receive the benefits of accumulated complexity and value over time. Corridors, Patches, and Stewards influence each other, inducing morphological, experiential, and functional changes that support a network of new physical and performative relationships. Chapter 6 further delves into aspects related to the implementation and performance of IA’s three-pronged approach, with Chapter 7 providing case studies that explain how the design solutions may adapt to different contexts and scales. The deployment of Corridors, Patches, and Stewards is guided by the following key principles: engagement with natural and cultural landscapes, working with organically evolving forms, and neighborhood improvement with healthy gentrification. The graphics that accompany this section illustrate how these three
components operate individually and the ways in which they work as a system. The following words offer a hypothesis of the nature, spatial organization in the sites, and expected results for each component.
