Anthony Leeds’ photographic documentation of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas (1965–1966) highlights different aspects of spatial informality by capturing how residents adapt communal spaces to cultivate cultural and social resilience. This paper employs a contextual framework to analyze Leeds’ images as constructions of narrative, focusing on three spatial typologies: squares (hubs of community life), murals (sites of political and artistic expression), and alleys (liminal thresholds between private and public realms). Through these categories, the analysis reveals how unplanned spaces enable fluidity, allowing inhabitants to reshape their environment through temporary physical appropriation while also acknowledging tensions like encroachment risks. The paper frames favelas as dynamic landscapes where architecture and culture intertwine. These informal settlements, as such, are not voids of disorder but spaces of inventive adaptation. The study invites further research into how contemporary informal settlements negotiate spatial agency.