World Studio

The world has been experiencing a rapid surge in urban population, in addition to fast urbanization processes, particularly in developing countries, such as Brazil and India. In this context, contemporary cities are witnessing the rise of numerous urban and social problems when the formal sector is unable to provide adequate housing for this growing population, leading to the emergence of informal settlements.

Computational and parametric resources have been increasingly adopted to develop novel approaches to urban planning and design, and several works have shown that such resources can be used to identify and reinterpret built patterns in informal settlements to improve urban quality without losing their essential features.

In this context, this research describes a teaching experience related to a broader research that is carried out in the context of a design studio that deals with the use of shape grammars and parametric design to decode, encode, and recode patterns in informal settlement in Ahmedabad, India. The goal was to provide students with the ability to understand how cultural aspects shape the environment and how they can hack this process to develop new approaches to residential urban areas with improved quality of life.