African Cities Through Local Eyes - Experiments in Place-Based Planning and Design

At a time where the African built environment is undergoing fast-paced urban, institutional and environmental changes, there is an increasing interest in alternative architectural solutions, urban designs and comprehensive planning experiments. This book provides the readers with a wide overview of place-based planning and design experiments addressing such large transformations. The international and balanced array of authors explores emerging research concepts for understanding urban and peri-urban processes in Africa and discusses bottom- up planning and design practices for steering such change through public spaces, sustainable services and infrastructures. Additional contributions further present inspirational and innovative co-design methods and participatory tools. The book is directed at students, researchers, decision-makers and practitioners engaged in planning and design for the built environment in Africa and the Global South.0Endorsements (Kabata Kabamba, Haïm Yacobi, Marcello Balbo)Preface1. Five Points for Conceptualizing Place-Based Approaches to African Urban Planning: An Introduction (Giuseppe Faldi, Axel Fisher and Luisa Moretto)2. Re-Inscribing the Communal: Towards Decolonial Urban Futures(Chadzimula O. Molebatsi)3. Urbanisation without Urbanity, Modernity without Modernisation. Recording “Biographical Trajectories of Houses” in the Dendi Rural Region (North Benin)(Jean-François Pinet)4. Designing the Diaspora: Expressing African Heritage in Historic Charleston(Nathaniel Robert Walker)5. Nature-Based Solutions for Public Green Spaces in Sub-Saharan Africa - Integrating Place-Making and Green Infrastructure(Juanee Cilliers, Sarel Cilliers and Louis Lategan)6. Slums as Opportunities? Spatial Organisation, Microeconomy and Self-Made Infrastructures in Freetown Informal Settlements(Federico Monica)7. Divergent Practice: Architecture as a Multidimensional Impact Tool in Rural Lesotho(Garret Gantner and Costanza La Mantia)8. Teaching Design in a Post-Rainbow Nation: A South African Reflection on the Limits and Opportunities of Design Praxis(Jhono Bennett)9. Urban Resilience and the Question of Food in Ethiopian Urbanisation: The Case of a Small Town in Ethiopia – Amdework(Teshome Tefera Tola, Ahmed Z. Khan and Fisseha Wegayehu)10. Transnational Urban Spaces. Production Locations of the Global Clothing Industry in Ethiopia(Elke Beyer and Anke Hagemann)11. Learning from Selembao: An Alternative Approach to Kinshasa’s Urbanization, Using the Concept of Mboka Bilanga(Gery Leloutre, Pietro Manaresi and Giuseppe Macaluso)12. Households’ and Community Initiatives toward City Resilience: The Case of Flood Resilience in Dar es Salaam(Genet Alem and Ally Hassan Namangaya)13. Motivations to Co-Produce Water, Hygiene and Sanitation Services in the Peri-Urban Area of Kinshasa(Jean-Pierre Ilito Boozi and Luisa Moretto)14. The Government Systems-Trust-Collective Action Nexus: The Case of Amdework(Lia G. Woldetsadik)15. Local Solid Waste Management Practices in the City of Zinder in Niger(Abdou Kailou Djibo and Mahamadou Mounir Zakari)