The AA has been central to the evolution of ideas about the informal city and the formulation of strategies to deal with it. The AA Research Cluster on Urbanism and the Informal City seeks to give continuity to that work while focusing specifically on architecture and urbanism as tools of political engagement in the transformation of the informal city and social conditions associated with it.
Part 2 of the symposium held in February continues to investigate the role of design as a generative tool in reconceptualising the challenges and potential of informality, bringing together guest speakers with considerable experience in professional and theoretical practice.
*Due to unforeseen probalems V Rao will now not be able to attend the symposium, apologies for inconvenience.*
Vyjayanthi V Rao is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the New School for Social Research, New York. She works on cities after globalisation, on the intersections of urban planning, design art, violence and speculation in the articulation of the contemporary global city. She is completing a book titled The Speculative City and has also been published in the Sage Handbook of Architectural Theory (2012) and in Editoriale Lotus, among others.
Teddy Cruz is recognised internationally for his urban research of the Tijuana-San Diego border, and in collaboration with community-based non-profit organisations for advancing new models of civic participation, affordable housing and public infrastructure at neighbourhood scale. He has received many prestigious awards. Cruz is a professor in Public Culture and Urbanism in the Visual Arts Department at University of California, San Diego.