Global Housing: Dwelling in Addis Ababa
Foreword
One morning, in the year 2000, when I stepped into the fourth year design studio, in which we left posted my students housing projects, surprisingly, I found an envelope, posted on the wall, alongside drawings. Inside the envelop there was a hand-written letter with the main message that reads “do not repeat our past mistakes”. The letter was written by a Dutch expatriate staff who used to live in one of the university’s guest houses. Apparently he came across the drawings while he was walking his dog, within the campus premises, in his evening routine. The letter briefly narrates the post-world war mass housing in the Netherlands and laments its mistakes.
I read the letter with a feeling of disappointment, the fact that the result of our studio work was nothing different from previous studios – non contextual. The intention of the studio, however, was not to copy the European model for housing. To the contrary, the design brief of the studio was to first identify the contextual and cultural mismatches of the existing housing in Addis Ababa and then develop a socially and economically responsive designs. Throughout the design process students were encouraged to use their findings in a creative way and come up with context specific housing typologies. However, to my surprise, the result of the studio was nothing different. The developed housing types were not responsive enough to the given context.
Reflecting on this soon I realized one cannot create a contextual and socially responsive housing through an exercise of a single course and mainly based on inspiration and appeal. It calls nothing short of an overhaul of an existing curriculum, which is copied from the Western world.
All related courses, such as: history of architecture, theory of architecture, building materials and construction techniques should be crafted in line to the desired outcome. Books, reference materials, journals that promote the desired outcome should be available. Obviously this is a daunting task that calls for a herculean and persistent effort.
Nineteen years on, in what seems a Deja vu, a Dutch-based studio at TU-Delft has now came up with this book responding to the appeal of the Dutch expatriate staff, mentioned earlier…. Read more
Global Housing: Dwelling in Addis Ababa
https://research.tudelft.nl/