Empower people toward socio-economic well-being

Thesis Supervisors: Ivan Kucina, Andrea Hasse.

Thesis project conducted in DIA Master of Arts studies at Anhalt University, Dessau, Germany.

My Thesis Project won the Robert Oxman Prize as the best thesis project in 2021, DIA Master of Arts Program, Hochschule Anhalt, and also was among the top 20 architecture graduation projects in Tamayouz awards in 2021.

Abstract

Informality is a global phenomenon that is often caused by the inadequacy of top-down policies and the inefficiency of rules and regulations worldwide. Egypt is no exception to this, as informal development has posed significant challenges to urban expansion, experiencing unprecedented growth from the sixties until today.

These informal areas and their residents have become marginalized, facing not only political inequality but also social exclusion. The poor living environment and inadequate infrastructure hinder the daily activities of informal dwellers, leading to further social exclusion. As the majority of inhabitants in these areas are impoverished, they struggle to achieve a life of dignity, prosperity, and peace.

Addressing the socio-economic well-being of informal area dwellers is crucial. In my research, I aim to move beyond immediate needs, recognizing their importance, and delve into the core issues of informality. By examining the patterns that hinder the empowerment and participation of dwellers and exploring the drawbacks of existing participation models, I seek to uncover activities and architectural patterns that can address the larger context of informality.

Through this study, I strive to find architectural solutions that will break the cycle of informality and contribute to resolving its challenges. By understanding the underlying issues and engaging in comprehensive analysis, we can pave the way for empowering informal dwellers and fostering sustainable change.

Research Questions

• What is the informality phenomenon? And what are the socioeconomic problems associated with it?

• How did the historical and global events contribute to the informality phenomenon?

• Who are the actors involved in informal areas?

• How did authorities and government intervene in informal areas?

• How did private providers intervene in informal areas?

• What is the role of inhabitants in the informal economy and social aspects?

• How can people break the syndrome of powerlessness associated with informality?

• What is the mechanism to empower people who live in informal areas?

• How will an informal society achieve an effective community organization?

• What is the intelligent model of participatory planning?

• What are the patterns and activities that could happen in the intelligent participatory model in a meeting point to achieve socioeconomic wellbeing?

The relationship between socioeconomic problems associated with people living in informal settlements is linked to the effects of neoliberalism and a dysfunctional political system. As a result, public services such as education, sanitation, and water are regarded as commercial commodities. The city government does not take the urban poor into account and often ignores the informal dwellers by excluding them from city development plans. Addressing the architecture of informality becomes a challenging issue to go beyond stereotypical generalizations that are easy to apply without realizing its potential as an alternative architectural discourse that confronts the disability of modern development in a challenging environment.

My research aims to address the core and larger issues of informality while understanding the potential of the status quo and decoding the complex system that already exists in informal areas in order to resolve the community's patterns and develop others to achieve justice and equality in the physical and social reality of informal areas.

AL MU’TAMIDIYA VILLAGE GIZA, GREATER CAIRO

Al Mu’tamidiya village is one of the oldest informal settlements in Giza governate, it is located on the west of the Nile and greater Cairo. it remained a rural area until 1950.

Urban Analysis

I tried to understand the problem with informality from the forces and actors involved. The link between actors:

The state: The political system in the last seventy years can be described as an autocracy under a military base. Initially, there was no intervention at all, followed by new town policies that were top-down plans, and then a new plan to prevent the formation of new informal settlements. This has resulted in a syndrome of powerlessness, where people living in informal areas are effectively trapped in a subculture of poverty, preventing effective participation in major societal institutions. They have no power in the political arena and no voice.

SYNDROME OF POWERLESSNESS

The Loop of Informality and Poverty

• The existing localities don’t help the core problems in informal settlements and also contribute to the prevention of any coordination between private providers and the central government.

• the syndrome of powerlessness has been demonstrated again and again that the people who live in informal areas are effectively trapped in a subculture of poverty, that this trap is a self-perpetuating, vicious circle, and that it precludes effective participation in society’s major institutions.

• Citizens feel marginalized and they feel their input is not valued

• they are not able to participate in its processes and institutions; because they are effectively shut off from the rest of society, they have no power in the political arena; and they have few local leaders; because they have no power and no voice their needs and complaints and the details of their situation are not widely known to other members of society -certainly they are not represented.

• In short, informality and poverty are syndromes that hinge principally on various facets of powerlessness.

INHABITANTS

Any single informal area is likely to contain a heterogeneous mix of inhabitants with a wide range of incomes. This heterogeneous is large to an areas’ development over time. Informal areas contain a wide range of citizens: one finds a mix of typical breadwinners, low-ranking government employees, professionals, merchants, contractors, teachers, and alongside with some extreme hardship cases who live on daily wages.

POTENTIALS AND PATTERNS EXISTED IN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS

““To work our way towards a shared and living language, once again we must first learn how to discover patterns which are deep, and capable of generating life””

— Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building,

PRIVATE PROVIDERS

GTZ, German technical cooperation was one of the first initiatives in participatory development planning projects in Egypt. GTZ assets a number of partner ministries as well as governorates of Cairo, Giza, and Qalyoubia in development and implementing participatory upgrading mechanisms. they selected two informal areas in greater Cairo as pilot projects, manshieyt nasr and bulaq al dakrour. The initiation started in 1998 on these cases and has conducted on three phases

Why have private providers failed to form larger-scale success in informal settlements?

The GIZ experience of the PDP, in these pilot projects, cannot be classified UNSUSTAINABLE PARTICIPATION PROCESS as a sustainable process when governmental support is continuously used as a tool to facilitate and mobilize the process or even to issue decrees supporting localized participatory mechanisms. It is here once again a centralized decision and a one-way power of decision-making. this is not a critique of the model itself, yet the problem is importing a foreign model and trying to adapt them to the Egyptian government (the central-powered entity). Additionally, in most cases, the NGOs and the private sector does not truly represent civil society and cannot contribute to community empowerment or to the objectives of participation. Thus once the facilitator of the PDP disappears the system of the PP will not function.

Based on the finding of the previous review, The PDP process did not continue after the GIZ left these areas. As feedback, people reported that they do not feel empowered after 13 years of this program and they still can not trust the government, This finding based on interviews with some citizens from informal areas.

The multi-service center Should contain a number of

patterns and activities to prepare people for participating by empowering them.

The developed patterns and activities consist of three categories

1. Local patterns and existing activities

2. Participation patterns and activities

3. Global Patterns inspired from Christopher alexander pattern language (the study of Multi-service center)

The output patterns and activities should function collectively in an organized manner in a form of social movement features. Some activities work collectively to emancipate the various forms and forces of informality.