Sense of Place within Transience: Reconfiguring housing efficiency and resilience in Sao Paulo’s peripheral urban condition

Sao Paulo, Brazil, a megacity home to 22.4 million inhabitants as of 2022 has “one of the most inequitable distributions of wealth in the world” (Caldeira 1996, 303). In the various districts, the inequality either shouts or whispers its presence. An open city, where the street-scape is the backdrop for social convergence, segregates itself in...

Inclusive neighbourhoods across urban waters: A spatial design for intensifying socio-ecological resilience in communities in Addis Ababa positioned between tradition and transition

The world is urbanising rapidly, with the Global South as the part of the world with the most rapid urbanisation. The urban population of Ethiopia is predicted to nearly triple in 25 years. The swiftness of urbanisation is resulting in extreme challenges. It causes, reinforced by climate change, that Addis Ababa is increasingly affected by...

Making a Living: Integrating informal income generation schemes into formal urban housing redevelopment as foundation for future economic growth and urban densification

Ethiopia is forecast to be the fastest growing economy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Partly due to this economic growth, the urban population is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. In the group of urban migrants, more than half comes from rural areas, indicating a large sum of poorly educated, low skilled workers as major part of...

Exploring the connection between arriving young adults and current residents of Addis Ababa: The redevelopment of bole sub city Woreda 14, Gerji, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The goal of the graduation studio is to research and design housing solutions that improve the livelihood of Addis Ababa’s urban dwellers. Combining analysis, planning and design, the participants of this graduation studio were challenged to use multidisciplinary research methods and tools to elaborate design proposals for the development of a...

Rediscovering the Roots of the City: Creating Synergy Between Addis Ababa’s Urban Dwellers and Rivers

This project seeks for an alternative low-cost housing strategy for the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Currently, the condominium housing scheme is implemented everywhere throughout the city. Despite the impressive amount of newly constructed dwelling units, shortcomings of this housing strategy have drastic consequences within the social and...

Gerji Co-habitable Densification _ Urbanization & Nostalgia: Towards the collective welfare between original and new residents

An alternative proposal for the densification needs of Gerji site in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The design itself is systematic and highly flexible, on a larger scale, it could be an example of a gentler way of deification that is caring for the people involved.

Condominium 3.0: Reinventing Addis Ababa’s Mass Housing Projects for the City and it’s Low-Income Dwellers

The project is a part of the Global Dwelling studio in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The focus of the studio is on Affordable Housing for the Global Urban South. This project looks to continue with the current method of affordable housing in Addis Ababa in the form of mass housing condominiums. These developments are appearing in huge numbers across...