The region of the Himalayas and the adjoining Tibetan plateau is known for its unique and characteristic vernacular architecture and housing culture which is slowly but surely disappearing. The first part of the book analyses 21 traditional houses in the region that respond in diverse ways to the specifics of their location and local climate. The second part presents a comparative study of the construction elements – walls, roof and façades – using photographs and hand-drawn construction details. The newly produced scale drawings provide an excellent basis for comparative review. Detailed plans, atmospheric photographs and informative texts take the reader on a journey through a fascinating building culture.

Tibetan architecture is largely associated with the impressive monastic buildings scattered over the Tibetan Plateau and the adjoining mountain ranges. While these buildings have long attracted the interest from travellers and researches, the rural vernacular architecture has been grossly neglected. Accounting for more than 90 percent of the cultural heritage vernacular farmhouses incorporate an immeasurable wealth of traditional knowledge and local craftsmanship that is increasingly threatened by the impacts of modernisation. The article draws on a research project on vernacular architecture in the Tibetan cultural region and presents four examples of rural houses in former Kham, that is nowadays spread across Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan provinces and the Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region. The examples show a surprising diversity in terms of style, size, layout, building materials and structural systems that are perfectly adapted to local climatic and topographic conditions as well as the resources available in a particular environment. As examples for this diversity the article presents a rammed earth building in Chatreng, a house in stone masonry from Dabpa, a house in Pome built with timber log walls, and a house from Gyalrong with a mixed stone/timber construction. The richness of vernacular farmhouse architecture in Kham deserves special recognition and support on various levels.

Increased emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O), together with a reduction in methane (CH4) emissions, have been widely reported for drained grasslands on organic soils (Klemedtsson et al. 2009, Renou-Wilson et al. 2014), for industrial peatlands (Wilson et al. 2007, Wilson et al. 2012, Wilson et al. 2015) and forested peat soils (Byrne and Farrell 2005, Minkkinen et al. 2008).

This chapter examines new interfaces between transnational networks of urban poor in the field of housing and the state. The focus is on the activities of two networks: Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI)2 and the 'sister model' the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), that in the case of Thailand is linked to the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI) and the National Union of Low Income Community Organizations (NULICO) on a national level, and within the region of Asia is linked to the Urban Poor Coalition Asia (UPCA)3. Whereas both networks seek to transform power relations through their transnational practices supporting empowerment and learning processes of local federations (see Chapter 2 in this volume), the focus here will be placed on the 'quality leaps' created through extending transnational practices such as enumerations of households and settlements, introducing saving schemes and fostering translocal exchanges with the aim to strengthen relationship-building to the state and international agencies. These practices – it is suggested – aim not only at an internal empowerment effect, but also at external effects in terms of strengthening negotiating power vis-à-vis external actors. The 'quality leaps' that are created by extending these practices to outside actors seem to be the formation of new intersections – or new governance spaces – with the state outside institutional channels. The hypothesis is that the 'quality leaps' created by extending transnational mechanisms to state actors are transforming power positions and assertiveness of the urban poor within the housing field. This will be illustrated by arguing that the emergence of internationally networked urban poor groups, backed up by global allies, has led to a new culture of negotiation at the local level. To do so the chapter is structured in three parts: firstly, it reveals the housing policy context in which the transnational networks are embedded. Secondly, it will outline how the process of relationship-building from local to global networks is extended to state actors ('quality leaps') and thirdly, it will discuss what political impact becomes evident in the three countries South Africa, Thailand and the Philippines and what general implications one can draw for the discourse on housing and urban development.

In recent years informality has been defined and re-defined in the context of urban development. Evolving from initially being understood as a 'sector' of the economy to currently being redefined as a 'new way of life', 'informality' has become a rather ambiguous term. According to our understanding, many of the current concepts of informality do not capture the complexity and importance of connectivity between sectors, levels, and actors. In particular, they neglect the importance of power relations and the blurriness of constantly negotiated and readjusted boundaries between the acceptable and the non-acceptable, legal and non-legal. In this article, we question the usefulness of the term 'informality' and instead propose a set of parameters in order to describe negotiation processes inherent to the term 'informality'. We suggest a model that tries to avoid the ambiguity of the informality debate. It offers a tool to understand the typically composite pattern of actors and their interplay regarding the three dimensions: power, legitimacy, and resources.