User-based design for inclusive urban transformation: learning from ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ dwelling practices in Guayaquil, Ecuador

In Latin American cities, modes of housing and settlement production are rapidly shifting with city-making becoming an increasingly unequal process. While the Latin American region was once a cradle for ground-breaking research on incremental urban development, more recent housing policies have radically disengaged from incremental dwelling typologies and socially engaged design practices. Taking a people-centred approach, this article documents the ways in which urban dwellers contribute to the production of the urban environment in Guayaquil, the largest city of Ecuador. Grounded in an intensive case study methodology, the inquiry focuses on the ways in which users resourcefully transform, adapt or contest space at the micro and the meso scales in both consolidated low-income settlements and state-led resettlement housing projects, most commonly present in the consolidating city of Guayaquil today. On this basis, the study examines how and to what extent spontaneously produced dwelling environments may inform new formal housing arrangements in the city and vice versa. It reflects on key principles for a new set of housing policies and design strategies suggesting the cultivation of a ‘variety of choices’ and draws attention to user-based design and housing mechanisms that foster inclusive urban transformation.