The evolution of human civilization, entwined with food, traces our development from hunters to settlers and now to a globalized food network. Carolyn Steel's 'sitopia' theory underscores the connection between place and sustenance. Brazil, a key player in the global food industry, paradoxically grapples with high inequality despite abundant resources. The journey from hunter-gatherer societies to modern agriculture reshaped our relationship with food, altering homes and communities.

Brazil's economic surge led to urban sprawl, resulting in housing crises like favelas, driven by uneven governance and inadequate infrastructure. Despite its abundant water resources, Brazil faces disparities in access, impacting millions. Food insecurity persists, affecting rural populations disproportionately.

This paradox of plenty amid scarcity underscores complex historical, geographical, and socio-economic factors. With a growing population and unsustainable agricultural practices, the looming crisis demands a shift toward sustainable food, water, trade, and housing. The question remains: where do we begin this crucial transformation? ... Read more

This graduation booklet shows the work that is done during the ‘Global Housing Graduation Studio: Addis Ababa Living Lab’. The goal of this project was to research and design housing solutions to improve the livelihood of Addis Ababa’s urban dwellers. Currently, Addis Ababa is facing the problems which are caused by the ongoing rapid urbanization. One of these problems, and the focus of my graduation project, is the degradation of the rivers and riverbanks. This project proposes a rehabilitation of the riverbank informal settlements of Addis Ababa, as well as implements a strategy to increase the density of the city which also takes into account the existing inhabitants of these riverbanks and offers them a dwelling type that fits their traditional way of life. ... Read more

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 flooding. The urban poor are forced to settle in the least desirable areas, such as areas around rivers which are most vulnerable to flooding. The rivers of Addis Ababa are polluted with all kinds of waste because of inadequate services. Around half the population has no water supply, forcing people to purchase water in shops. The urban poor cannot afford this and use the unsafe water from the rivers as a consequent. The Ethiopian government launched in 2019 the Addis Ababa Riverside project, or the Sheger beautifying project. It follows a series of ongoing beautification projects in the Global South. The project aims to clean the rivers and create public spaces, bicycle paths and walkways along the rivers. The project is criticised because it is no certainty that the rivers will not continue flooding and there is no proposition for all the waste that is currently discharged into the rivers. Rapid urbanisation in combination with poverty and the inability of the state and the market to provide affordable housing, cause that over 1 billion people reside in informal settlements. Addis Ababa can be seen as an example of this inability. Historical grown, informal neighbourhoods called sefers are located in the city centre. Over the last decade, sefers are challenged by the swift urbanisation of Addis Ababa with a resettlement program aiming to replace these low-income neighbourhoods into denser urban schemes affecting the social, economic and political tissue. This program, the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP), was introduced by the government in 2005. The inhabitants of former kebele houses claim their houses get demolished without any compensation or alternative accommodation. Piassa is chosen as a project site, being currently challenged by demolition of the existing kebele housing. Having researched the location and its inhabitants, a housing system is designed with a combination of tenure systems for different income groups. These groups will live together in an inclusive, mixed-income environment in the inner-city of Addis Ababa. ... Read more

An Architecture of Enablement documents the design of a participatory housing system in the context of Addis Ababa. It represents the first application of the principles put forward in Patterns of Participation. It focuses on formulating a new standard of housing applicable city-wide, perhaps even nation-wide rather than a particular, site-specific piece of architecture. It confronts real-life issues head on, offering an alternative to the existing mode of mass housing in Addis Ababa. ... Read more

The BK faculty will be represented at the 17th Venice International Architecture Exhibition with “Housing the Urban Invisibles”. A show that displays student work and educational material that critically explores alternative approaches for the design of mass housing as a key component of sustainable development. ... Read more

Addis Ababa is a city experiencing a huge population boom, and where the vast majority of housing can be classified as “slum”. State-owned kebele housing, which houses an estimated 40% of the city’s inhabitants, has very low rents but is not maintained, leading to deterioration. Thus, the city is left with a severe shortage of adequate housing. Current state-led developments intended to alleviate the acute housing problem do not address the specific situation of Addis Ababa, and do not allow for the flexibility and adaptability that is required by residents. This research and design project focusses on a specific site in Gerji, owned by the Federal Housing Corporation, and proposes a new model for mid-density, low-rise development which is specific to the context of Ethiopia and suitable for the varying and different living patterns of people in Addis Ababa. The project includes ethnographic research, looking into the lifestyles and daily habits of local residents, as well as documenting their homes and living spaces. Further research was conducted into vernacular and historical building styles and construction methods present in Ethiopia, which was used to inform the design and better understand the specific context of Ethiopia. The research concluded that many different living patterns must be accommodated in a new development, and that this should allow for flexibility and adaptability as household incomes and expectations change over time. Moreover, homes should be suitable for the climate and materials and construction techniques should be informed by local customs in order to aid social sustainability. Finally, tenure options, functions and typologies should be mixed to create a diverse and resilient neighbourhood. The proposed design addresses the research by offering three distinct typologies of building, all of which offer the flexibility needed to allow for different functions and uses. These three typologies are aimed at different sectors of the community and are proposed to be offered in different tenure models. The design is simple and uses adobe bricks and laminated bamboo lumber as its main construction materials. These both use raw materials that can easily be sourced locally and can be processed cheaply on site, using local labour. Ultimately, the proposal achieves a density similar to that of local state-funded housing developments, known as “condominiums”, suggesting that this more varied and site-specific approach to tackling the housing shortage is feasible for Addis Ababa. Adopting such an approach, which looks to local customs and vernacular styles for inspiration, is a radical alternative to the unsustainable route currently being taken in Addis Ababa. ... Read more

In last decades, the housing sector have been going through profound transformations imposed by the society’s changes. The number of city dwellers is increasing all over the World, especially in the Global South where the shift from rural to urban life is still ongoing. Nevertheless, the resulting strategies to cope with the challenges that are following this escalation have often proved to be ineffective, leaving part of the population in miserable condition, unable to access proper housing and services. Particularly in developing countries, the lack of proper unifying urban strategies has led to the proliferation of gated communities, both formal and informal. As a result, a fracture between public and private space has been created. The aftermath of this phenomena are the lack of security and the communities’ alienation. Also, the call for progress, the attempt to build a modern ideal city and the pressure from the housing market have led to the erasure of the existing historical fabric, thus both tangible and intangible heritage. Therefore, the thesis’ pivot is the border-boundary condition and the transitional spaces as the crucial threshold toward an integrated and cohesive system, regarding physical transition, income groups, and technology. The project envisions an area where different income groups can come together, providing a regular and varied scheme, together with special urban condition. The in-between spaces, translated form the one observed and studied on site, provide a physical transition from public to private space and from existing to new architecture. Likewise, the technological feature aim at providing a solution which can be adapted and work in different conditions. The final intent is to realize a neighborhood where the local community will be supported believing also that this will lead also to the support of the incoming fabric as well. ... Read more

One of the most striking things bout the city of Mumbai, and more specifically Nalasopara, is the conflict visible between the formal and informal natures of the city. In a city where informal work and precarious lifestyles, are becoming ever more common, with currently 81% of india’s ecmonmy in the informal sector, the systems used to house this rapidly growing population is varied and complex but predominantly led by neoliberal and market driven economic tendencies. These systems demand a formal, top down and individual pproach towards the production of hosuing. This project aims to investigate these conflicts in the context of Mumbai and propose an architecture that can cater for needs and ambitions of the informal and precarious opulation of Nalasopara, in a way that suits the private developer and find a balance between these two mismatched systems. ... Read more

To balance the outbreak in density which is currently focused in Rahmat Nagar and encourage a city that is open for newcomers, the connection between Nalasopara West and East should be embraced. In order to achieve this connection and create a community linking both sides of the railway, issues such as urban markers, collective spaces, variety in dwelling types and the seek for ownership should be investigated. Finally, to transform this project into a possible action plan for other developments in Mumbai, density and profitability for developers should be of high importance. Considering all these aspects, I aim to investigate and make a solid contribution to the discussion about affordable housing in Mumbai. ... Read more

Housing projects being developed in the future, must challenge the previous problematic development trends built on efficiency in the past. In order to do so, Jan Bredenoord, Paul Van Lindert and Peer Smets state, within their book ‘Affordable Housing in the Global Urban South: Seeking Sustainable Solutions’, that new communities being developed for the future must foster resilience. Resilience is a systems ability to adapt to change. Cities and urban spaces make up, as Charles Correa once said, “a whole system of spaces that people need (Correa, 1989).” “Urban living involves... a whole system of spaces that people need.” Charles Correa In nature, Bredenoord and his colleagues explain, “ecosystems have survived over time by adjusting to changing circumstances resulting in a search for equilibrium between two opposing poles, of efficiency and resilience. The healthiest systems have an optimum balance between the two extremes, which may be described by the term sustainability (Bredenoord et.al, 2014).” Furthermore, cities and urban spaces can be seen as patchworks of “green space, biodiversity (including people), non-biological structures (buildings), biophysical processes and energy flows, and are in that way comparable to natural ecosystems (Maddox, 2012).” The balance between the two extremes, sustainability, can be defined as a trade-off between efficiency and resilience. On the one hand, too much efficiency will lead to little diversity and stagnation in the system, while too much resilience will lead to too much diversity and a lack of coherence and purpose to grow. The goal for future housing developments should therefore be at aiming for an optimum balance between the two. It is upon this background that the graduation project’s topic of ‘Resilience’ and the research question of the project was defined. ... Read more

Mumbai has seen the rapid urbanization in recent years. A large influx of migrants look for business and employee opportunities in the city, which led to the issue of over-population. It is estimated that there is a population of more than 21 million in Mumbai in 2018, while over 40 percent of people live in the informal settlements in extremely poor conditions. Meanwhile, construction activities have been carried out by both government and private developers to provide more affordable housing for the urban poor. However, there is a tendency that what a megapolis should look like is judged mainly by its form rather than the process, which gives chance to the real estate construction industry. High-rise and mid-rise towers have been built for slum dwellers, mainly migrants, which completely ignores their existing living habits and economical features. The 'modern' life differs from original rural life of migrants, leading to the social isolation as well. The project attempts to reconsidering the shift of living conditions for urban poor during the chawl redevelopment, to establish a stronger connection to the ground life and simulate new possibilities for social interaction. ... Read more