Social Infrastructure: Architectures' Role in Affecting Change in Impoverished Urban Areas

Abstract

Urban poverty is an inevitable consequence of rapid and unchecked urban development. To simply remove or replace these communities is socially disruptive and fails to confront the underlying issues. This design thesis will: review how urban poverty and marginalisation occur; discuss the rights that informal communities have to space and place and how architecture might facilitate the acquisition/expression of such a right; and offer critique of common approaches to slum upgrading. Using the Khlong Toei slum in Bangkok, Thailand, as a case study, the thesis will then attempt to postulate meaningful and integrated architectural interventions for urban slum upgrading, based around the participatory approach. The thesis will contribute to the development of participatory upgrading theory by proposing the concept of architecture as a form of ‘social infrastructure’, through which community social arrangements may be reinforced and crystallised, culminating in the design of a modular construction system and community centre for the people of Khlong Toei.