In-formal: the city with(out) a form?

Currently, the city's shape is the backdrop of the daily activities of more than 50% of the world’s population, and it significantly influences the characteristics of the life that takes place in it. With the increase of the world population and the excessive growth of many cities especially in the developing countries, in recent years much emphasis has been placed on the difference between the formal and the informal city. Unfortunately, this distinction has led to misconceptions and erroneous conclusions, giving deliberately more validity to the first one for the fact that it has been designed and built by professionals, while the second continues to be seen as a problematic solution to the quantitative deficit of formal housing which, with the lack of skills and time to plan, and of economic, material and human resources to build, generates an equally serious quality deficit. However, while this may seem true on paper when you visit the two faces of the city, a completely different reality is often perceived. Usually, the formal city appears closed, exclusive and exclusionary and deprived of life in the public and collective spaces, while the informal city seems to be evolving, open and full of vitality. This paper illustrates the first considerations of a research focused on highlighting the enormous technological potential, collective capacity and creative and participatory force that the in-formal city and its “popular” architecture offers when combined with the technical and scientific knowledge of the professional architect through identifying and analysing significant best practices in some countries of Latin America and Europe. The scope is to contribute to the academic debate by analysing the informal city, not as a static concept that expresses the lack of a form, but as a living organism whose form is born from the inside (in-formal) and changes with time. For instance, one of the practices that form part of the identity of the in-formal city is self-help building, in which the dwellings are built progressively according to the economic availability of the family units. In the case studies analysed, in the eyes of the architects, this type of practices of the in-formal city is seen as an opportunity for innovation and creativity based on other ways of understanding architecture and the territory.