You're Not My Type #4

The value of cities relies on the inhabitation of difference, the cohabitation of multi-layered realities constantly coinciding and interacting. According to architect and planner Khensani de Klerk, precarious living, embodied in precarious and unrecognised types, largely remain relegated to informality and with it, connotations of unreliability, high risk and chaos. However, many of the systems that encode the functioning of these informal types are thoroughly thought out systems that one could argue are even more sophisticated than many types in the formal world, but lack the material quality of those governed by formality. How do we build up coalitions and recognize interdependency between both?

Khensani de Klerk is an architectural researcher and designer from Johannesburg. She is part of the Dept. of the Ongoing at the Chair of Affective Architectures. She is founder and co-director of Matri-Archi(tecture) collective (SA, CH), an editorial contributor at the Architectural Review (UK) and head of research and development at Studio8Fold (UK).