Insights on Affordable, Resilient and Incremental housing within Urban Informal Settlements: The Case of Lahore, Pakistan

The right to adequate and standard housing is the right of every individual. Recently, the provision of affordable yet quality housing for all has met a great concern. The growing urbanization and economic activities are doubling this number, and as a result many people are bound to reside in as informal settlers. The situation is more alarming in the context of developing countries of which Pakistan is a live example. Lahore, which is a Metropolitan city of the country, is facing huge housing shortage and a rising trend in urban informal settlers: here, a significant number of populations with the city’s urban area live in substandard informal housing. While informal settlements satisfy the housing demand of low-income population, they account for high physical, economic, social and environmental vulnerability, hence making the settlers more vulnerable to risks. Because, such informal housing units are mostly seen emerging out as a self-built process, these lack technical expertise and resources which could make the overall living resilient and affordable. To address this issue, this research intends to explore the affordable, resilient and incremental needs of the urban informal settlers by following a qualitative research design approach at an intermediate level which shall broadly focus around three potential stakeholders i.e. individuals (informal settlers), public/government and private bodies. The main aim of this research is to produce insights on participatory incremental housing processes and develop strategies that are cost, time and design efficient. To achieve this, the idea is to formulate analysis and design-based strategies for low income urban neighborhoods and its relation to individual houses within them on incremental basis. The research shall target a total of five outcomes (cost & time break up, a prototype model design of neighborhood and house, qualitative collective spaces, financial models and supportive policy framework) in light of predefined research aim and questions to develop a holistic framework which shall serve as a guided tool for different stakeholders facilitating the informal settlers to help themselves to get accommodated and housed in an affordable neighborhood. Keywords: Incremental Housing, Resilient Housing, Affordable Housing, Urban Informal Settlements, Collective Spaces