This studio first and foremost challenged those assumptions that pigeonhole the definition of architecture. We started with an investigation of “the informal” and its reverse development process. If the formal process is property-design-construction-inhabitation, the favela process is inhabitation-construction-(drawing?) and legal tenure. We experimented with the challenge of drawing informality. We dived into the world of “mobile homes”, the starting point of every semi-informal community in this country. And in the second half of the semester we designed public spaces and infrastructure strategies for Rancho Vista, a 300-household community with a significant degree of informality in San Marcos, TX, 25 miles from our studio.
