n many parts of the world, the political, social and environmental effects of the rampant production of space lead
to reactionary movements such as insurgent urbanism (Davis 2013) which seek, under pressures of insufficient
governance and minimal civic capacity, to address emerging manifestations of spatial chaos.
However, what appears to be chaos at one level has the potential to emerge as a different form of complexity or
order in a dynamical system of another scale. In this paper, it is argued that individuals, communities, even whole
living cities together can self-organise, increase resilience, evade decay, and even flourish with the right supports.
Following a literature review and desktop research, two rapidly globalising locations are examined for the
potential of new systems to emerge: an informal settlement in one of the most unequal cities in the world,
Johannesburg (South Africa), and an unplanned settlement in Dublin, in one of the fastest globalising countries in
the world (Ireland). A theoretical investigation of related critical urban and spatial theory is followed by a focus on
healthcare provision, and a definition of ‘Rhizomatic Healthscapes’ is proposed. One site in each city is examined
in relation to the possible provision of appropriate rhizomatic healthscapes, defined as non-fixed health provision
which minimises obduracy, following Habraken’s open building theory, and extending it to design scales around
and above architecture. Then systems are proposed which could be less fixed and obdurate than existing
provision, more open and flexible, and ultimately more successful in resistance to forces of unequal spatial
production which prevent appropriate healthcare in a rapidly globalising, increasingly connected world.
A framework is proposed for stimulating official responses to issues of health, spatial justice and quality in
unplanned and informal settlements with reference to innovative policy, and suggestions are made for new
design processes, products and responses to informal, unplanned and spatially chaotic scenarios.