Rem Koolhaas – Lagos
African Urbanism
Speaker: Edgar Pieterse
Chair: Philipp Rode
This event was recorded on 26 January 2011 in U8, Tower One
Africa is the fastest urbanising region in the world, and has become the focus of increasing attention from architects and planners, academics, development agencies and urban think-tanks. Professor Edgar Pieterse argues for a new way of thinking about African cities to accompany this surge of interest and to replace traditional views of African cities as sites of absence and neglect. Rapid urbanisation along with impressive economic growth rates for much of the Continent represents an interesting moment to take stock of how academic discourses capture and animate African urbanism. Edgar Pieterse is holder of the NRF South African Research Chair in Urban Policy. He directs the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town. Philipp Rode is executive director of LSE Cities.
Sanitation Challenges In Urban Slums – SCUSA Part 1
Integrated approaches and strategies to address the Sanitation Crisis in Unsewered Slum Areas in African mega-cities
Bwaise III Parish, Kampala, Uganda
Africa, though reported to be the least urbanized continent, is recognized as one where the rate of urbanization is highest. To house all these new city dwellers, informal settlements in the peri-urban areas continue to development and expand.
It is not only housing that the urban population requires: clean drinking water and hygienic sanitary conditions are also essential. Providing water and sanitation in these peri-urban areas is however very difficult, for technical, financial, institutional and spatial reasons.
Lack of proper sanitation not only leads to undignified and unhealthy conditions; stagnant water causes breeding pools for malaria, plus the streams entering and leaving the slum catchment, either as surface water or groundwater, form a significant pollutant load.
This water is polluting drinking water and, due to extremely high phosphorus fluxes from the slum catchments, eutrophying surface water. Therefore, the main research question of this project is: How to improve sanitation in urban slums, with emphasis on reducing the output of nutrients leaving the slum?
Scusa
Objectives: to identify and implement low cost integrated sustainable sanitation solutions to provide excreta and greywater management in a typical slum area. To determine the financial, institutional, and sociological mechanisms or boundary conditions for successful implementation of sustainable sanitation solutions in this urban slum and to use the lessons learned in other slum areas. To determine the effect of slums and of environmentally sustainable sanitation in slums on groundwater and surface water quantity and quality. In answering to these research objectives, UNESCO-IHE is joining forces with Makarere University from Kampala Uganda.
Praxis Discussion Series: Urbanization
What’s driving urbanisation? How can we make our cities more inclusive? What does resilient, sustainable urbanisation look like, globally, in Asia, and in the Pacific? This is a discussion with four leading experts: Max Kep from Papua New Guinea’s Office of Urbanisation; Professor John Connell from the University of Sydney; Truman Packard, World Bank and Simon Cramp, AusAID
SmarterCities Rio | Fareed Zakaria Speaks About The Intersection Of Globalization And Urbanization
Dr. Fareed Zakaria, Editor, TIME Magazine, speaks about the intersection of globalization and urbanization.
Avi Friedman: Thinking Outside The Box On Affordable Housing
The SFU Centre for Dialogue presents renowned international housing expert Dr. Avi Friedman, in collaboration with the Urban Development Institute, City of Vancouver, Social Planning and Research Council of BC, BC Non-Profit Housing Association and other partners.
Lecture Description:
Metro Vancouver’s many attributes make it a highly desirable place to live and invest. Unfortunately, that makes housing, whether rental or ownership, unaffordable for many of the region’s citizens. The need to think outside the box about lower-cost residential options has become an urgent priority. Renowned international housing expert Dr. Avi Friedman speaks about what’s making housing unaffordable in Metro Vancouver — as well as the direct and indirect contributions that affordable housing makes to communities. He describes potential housing strategies, including examples of local and international projects, that offer innovative affordable housing solutions for this region.
Keynote biography: Avi Friedman, Professor, McGill University School of Architecture
Dr. Avi Friedman received his Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and Town Planning from the Israel Institute of Technology, his Master’s Degree from McGill University, and his Doctorate from the University of Montréal. In 1988, he founded the Affordable Homes Program at the McGill School of Architecture where he teaches. He is known nationally and internationally for his housing innovation and in particular for the Grow Home and Next Home designs. He is the author of ten books and was a syndicated columnist for the CanWest Chain of daily newspapers. He is a practicing architect and the recipient of numerous awards including the Manning Innovation Award and the United Nations World Habitat Award. In the year 2000 he was selected by Wallpaper magazine as 1 of 10 people from around the world “most likely to change the way we live”. Read more