Urban informality in the developing world - Opportunistic urban design processes and prototypes for the developed world

The turn of the twenty first century heralds a fundamental shift in the world’s population towards cities in what has been termed The Urban Age, most visible in the developing world. Instead of the dichotomy of ‘First World models’ and ‘Third world problems’, research has begun to explore the complexities of urban informality revealing new approaches to the complex creation of urban spaces. This paper will analyse the prevailing perspectives in order to develop an understanding of informality as an urban evolution through necessity. Finally through an analysis of professional urban design experiments the paper highlights opportunities and challenges within the developing world for new and exciting urban design processes in the developed world.