Critical Neighbourhoods

Critical Neighbourhoods – The Architecture of Contested Communities examines recent research and practice-based interventions across three continents – Africa, the Americas, and Asia. The book focuses on three informal neighbourhoods in Luanda, New Delhi, and Caracas, translating their spatial, social, and political conditions into architectural language. Through this lens, it proposes new interpretations of housing, public space, infrastructure, and citizenship.

The neighbourhoods studied are often marginalised and under threat, yet deeply embedded in the contemporary urban condition. By making these territories conceptually and materially visible, Critical Neighbourhoods sheds light on their complexity and diversity, while challenging dominant narratives of informality. In doing so, the book opens up alternative ways of understanding cities and uncovers new modes of architectural production grounded in contested realities.

Central to the project is an expanded understanding of the role of architects and researchers as facilitators of local knowledge. Rather than operating from a distance, the work insists on deep engagement with specific territories and the people who inhabit them. This embedded approach – attentive to everyday practices, and forms of agency – is what distinguishes Critical Neighbourhoods from other studies of informal urbanism.