"Shanty towns through the ages" Topic

I'm currently modelling a kind of slum area for fantasy gaming (though I might use it as a 17th/18th century pirate city in swashbuckling gaming as well). Looking at pictures of modern shanty towns is giving me lots of ideas for the general layout of such an area (claustrophobically narrow winding alleys, houses practically clambering over each other, etc) but as I'm trying to build something to use in fantasy/ancient/medieval type settings, the materials are all wrong. Does anyone have any ideas of what "early" shanty towns looked like (or at least, what they might be imagined to have looked like)? What kind of materials would have been used for walls and roofs, and so on? I'm not really looking for historical accuracy, but of course I can't go for modern-day stuff like corrugated sheeting materials either.

Any advice is welcome, especially anything that's useful from a modelling standpoint.

Seems to Me wood planking would be the most common type of building material.

I would expect poorly-maintained wattle-and-daub walls and thatched roofs. Of course, in those days, a shanty town would probably have been found outside of the town walls, so a tent-like structure made of branches may well have done for the recently arrived and very down-and-out.

You'd also see a lot of canvas walls and roofs.

I was wondering about the canvas myself, so thanks for affirming that idea.

Planks will probably feature a lot in my shanty town, I already built some very battered-looking wooden shacks the other day to get me started on the project.

To be honest I was never quite sure what "wattle and daub" meant until I looked it up just now. I think that'd be very suitable in a shanty town. What about plain wattle without daub?

Daub is just mud and lime, so it wouldn't be any more expensive for someone to finish their walls with the stuff. Plain wattle would offer no protection against cold and wind. Maybe an appropriate shanty look could come from a wattle and daub structure with chunks of daub broken out in some area—a general look of disrepair.

Wattle and daub structures with thatched roofs have a definite expiration date. They tend to fall down after 20 years or so. There was a reproduction British round house at Butser Ancient Farm that had to be demolished recently. At a certain point they just can;'t be repaired anymore. -that could be the look you want.

The Kowloon walled city has got to be the most over the top slum city in the world (though it no longer exists). Building on top of buildings on top of buildings with narrow, maze-like streets, and thousands of people in just one small area.

link

Shanties are about poverty, so what can easily be stolen, had for cheap, or made with local stuffs?

Cloth is easy. Faded colors with patches for most of it I would expect.

Wood is often expensive. Pre industrial boards take a lot of labor to make, so small trees and shrubs are more likely to be readily availabe. Of course doors and shutters can be looted during riots as can tavern signs and bridge decking.

Old ruins can supply small stones, and may even be the site of such camps, so why not use an old temple or fortress and let the slums spread out from there.

Discarded items work well too. Small overturned boats and carts for example. A large barrel might house an entire family of gnomes or kobolds while smaller barrels can be stacked to make a wall.

Caves too are handy. Bluffs can be dug out to make small dirt caves or old tunnels and quarries can be used.

Some times houses will be partially dug into the ground, so the roof may only be 3 feet or so above grade.

"Maybe an appropriate shanty look could come from a wattle and daub structure with chunks of daub broken out in some area—a general look of disrepair."

Welcome to "building to code" in the middle ages :) Most of my model houses look like that.

How did you model the exposed wattle? Been experimenting with this for the past few hours and I'm having trouble finding a technique that's easy and gives a good-looking result.

The main ingredient of daub is poo, not mud. Mud is just dust and water. When it dries, it's basically just compacted dust; held together by the friction between the dust particles so it's quite brittle.

Animal poo, however, has minced up plant fibres in it -- typically animals can't digest all the food they eat. Those fibres reinforce the dust matrix, giving the resultant wall panels more strength.

If it's clayey, the mud may not be quite so brittle when dried …

I didn't model, I painted. Sorry for the misimpression.

Of course, in those days, a shanty town would probably have been found outside of the town walls,

The other main place is the low-lying parts by the river (few ancient towns not being built on a river) because these tended to flood on a regular basis. And the rivers tended to stink too, reducing their appeal. Quite a few slums were stilt buildings as a result.

A favourite was building them in such a place that much of the building work is already done. Lean-to's alongside redundant city walls, bridges etc was a favourite.

You can use the wire net, like this
picture
Find the one which has the wires only "knitted", not welded, disguise into branches and build on.

You can look for crazy stuff like Goblin City:
picture

andy

As people above have mentioned, poor folks use what they can get. Today shantie town have a lot of polythene, corrugated iron, cardboard, and beaten 44 gallon drums, depending on local availability.

You mentioned a pirate setting, so how about salvaged scavenged ship parts? Old canvas, holed rowboats built into structures, masts used as supports? As well as whatever local materials are available. Tropical? plam trees and leaves…

Sticks and straw were the poor man's building materials before lumber mills made planed wood easily available, as the three pigs well knew. Wattle and daub with straw roofs would be what one would expect to see, with occasional small stick huts.

Lean tos up against the city walls would probably be common, though a more active town government would likely keep them clear if there was an active threat.