Through examining urban informality, abroad and at home, I highlights issues in contemporary city design. Over deterministic planning that seeks order and control, leads to a fragile, disjointed city, not able to efficiently adapt to changing uncertainty. In order to develop the resilient cities of the future that we need, It is clear that the professions concerned with the built environment will need to let loose of their grip on visual order, we have to embrace informality!
I argue that design does not need to be so prescriptive, form not so tied to function, we can’t with any precision predict the outcomes, we can only try to create environments/structures that impart the least amount of resistance to change and allow for the most amount of interconnection.