Architecture of informal spatiality: from a flat to a city plan. research of design and planning flexibility

Abstract

The main research question in this article is should architects and urban planners have to allow some informality of everyday life in the design of the residential buildings or even in the plan for the city? By exploring relations of spontaneous interventions with a rigid and formal design and planning process, this article examines the real flexibility of products of those processes such as a flat or a city. The article examines the informal spatial practices in the three scales of design: a flat, a residential building or settlement and on a city level. The case studies for this research are Belgrade, a capital city and also two cities along the Danube River in Serbia. The research is based on urban morphology and comparative analysis of planning documentation and illegal interventions. Although architects at the beginning of the design process are starting from people's needs, in the end, do they finished products that are allowing the influence of the spontaneous everyday activities and habits of their inhabitants? Are they just a framework for truly living? Is the over planned living space bad? Is esthetic and form over function and life, in some designs or plans? The article argues that the only balance between planning and informality could be a good result, that no process with the complete exclusion of the other is giving quality outcome.