Almost one billion people live in conditions that UN-Habitat classifies as slum households, out of almost four billion people who live in cities today. If the UN numbers hold true, approximately two and a half billion urban dwellers will be added by 2050 with a total estimated urban population of six-plus billion. We have come to understand that the majority of this increased urbanisation will not result in perfect shining cities set in pastoral landscapes. Rather it is much to the contrary; if UN-Habitat predictions turn out to be correct, over two thirds of the new urban population, some two billion, may fall under UN-Habitat's category of a slum household, deprived of at least one out of five basic living conditions.
Many of what UN-Habitat considers slum households are part of self-built neighbourhoods, the result of informal occupation and construction. If two-thirds of our new urbanisation will be largely the result of people building their own homes and neighbourhoods outside of formal planning and processes, and close to one billion people live in these urban situations now this is not a fringe phenomenon of urbanisation. It is mainstream urbanisation, quickly becoming the majority - and thus the chosen title for this collection is 'Metropolis Nonformal'.
About the Author
Jessica Bridger is an American urbanist, journalist and consultant, based in Germany.
Her research, writing and visual work are published internationally in various books, magazines and journals, including Monocle Magazine, Metropolis, FRAME, Volume, MONU and Landscape Architecture Magazine. She is a contributing editor for Monocle Magazine, and frequently works with Monocle24 radio. She is a contributing editor of uncube and is on the editorial board of Landscape Architecture Europe, along with serving as advisory editor to Manifest: A Journal of American Architecture and Urbanism.
Her consultancy conducts expert research, content production, strategy and planning for institutional and corporate partners. She has a special focus on strategic communications for projects related to the built environment and spatial issues. She is on the management committee of the Global Schindler Award, a new urban design competition for students, a joint project between Schindler Group and the ETH Zurich.
She holds a Master in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. Jessica was the 2011/2012 Bakema Fellow through the Jaap Bakema Foundation and the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI).
She was a studio instructor for a design studio at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and a guest critic for design studios, workshops and seminars at Harvard University, Columbia University, Hong Kong University, TU Berlin and ETH Zurich.
Christian Werthmann is a professor of landscape architecture and design at Leibniz University in Hannover. Until 2012, he was an associate professor and the program director of the Master in Landscape Architecture degree programs at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Werthmann has written numerous books and articles, exhibited globally, and been a speaker at international conferences on landscape and urbanism. As a former Hans Fischer Senior Fellow at TU Munchen, he curated two major Metropolis Nonformal symposia, in 2011 and 2013, which form the basis of this publication. His own research concentrates on the potential of landscape architecture and infrastructure in heavily urbanized and socially conflicted terrain. His most recent publication, "Rehabitar la Montana," co-produced with the think tank URBAM, engages the non-formal occupation of geologically risky terrain in Medellin.
