Addis Ababa Living Lab: One Year Later

The joint TU Delft and NWO-WOTRO funded research project ‘Addis Ababa Living Lab’ kicked off one year ago, in May 2019. Over the last year, a team of researchers from TU Delft and the Ethiopian Institute for Architecture Building Construction and City Development (EiABC) have been working together on the first research outputs to achieve the project’s goal: to improve the livelihood of Addis Ababa’s resettlement dwellers. This work will continue in the coming three years.

Two PhD Candidates joined the project, both from EiABC, and started working on two different aspects of the project. Yonas Alemayehu, based in Addis Ababa, will analyse past and current processes of urban resettlement in Addis Ababa, and investigate the needed conditions for using a more interdisciplinary and participatory process of planning, implementation and management. Yonas, travelled to the Netherlands with an additional grant from Delft Global Initiative to conduct literature study, meet with his promotors, and collaborate with the educational program of the Global Housing group at the Department of Architecture.

Brook Teklehaimanot, based at TU Delft, studies the ‘patterns of inhabitation’ of dwellers living in Addis Ababa’s different urban conditions. He will bring about deeper knowledge on the social and spatial practices of urban communities, including dwelling practices, structures of sociability, forms of income generation, borders, building materials and techniques. He conducted fieldwork in Addis Ababa to identify case study sites and tested ethnographic methods of observation, and citizens’ participation. 

In November 2019, the whole team got together in Addis Ababa for intensive meetings, a workshop and site visits along with the 16 students from the related TU Delft ‘Addis Ababa Living Lab’ MSc3/4 Graduation Studio. Currently, the students are in the last stage of the development of their graduation research, which is expected to deliver 16 different architectural design proposals, for four different sites in Addis Ababa.

Coming year – when Covid-19 allows us – we start working on a participatory research and design to build a Pilot Project in Addis Ababa, coordinated by Prof. Dick van Gameren (Mecanoo Architecten) and Rahel Shawl (RAAS architects). The research outputs created by the research team will be used to support the designers pursuing an alternative model for the design and development of adequate housing in Addis Ababa. The Pilot will also be used as a test case and feedback loop to develop an holistic, actionable framework for creating resilient dwelling clusters for urban resettlement in Addis Ababa.

Project partners
 TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (TUD-BK, Prof.dr.ir. Marja Elsinga, PI), Ethiopian Institute for Architecture, Building Construction and City Development (EiABC, Dr. Elias Yitbarek), Federal Housing Corporation, Addis Ababa (Zekarias Sebsbie, Mahlet Yared), Mecanoo architecten, Delft (Prof.ir. Dick van Gameren), RAAS Architects, Addis Ababa (Rahel Shawl)
 
Research Team
PhD Candidates:
Brook Teklehaimanot Haileselassie (TUD-BK)
Promotors: Prof.ir. Dick van Gameren (TUD-BK), Dr. Henk Jonkers (TUD-CiTG)
Daily supervisor: Dr. Nelson Mota (TUD-BK)
 
Yonas Alemayehu Soressa (EiABC)
Promotors: Prof.dr.ir. Marja Elsinga (TUD-BK), Dr. Elias Yitbarek (EiABC)
Daily supervisor: Dr. Maartje van Eerd (EUR-IHS)
 
Post Doc Researcher (starting in 2021):
Anteneh Tesfaye Tola (TUD-BK)
 
Educational Team:
Dr. Nelson Mota (coordinator), ir. Harald Mooij, Prof. ir. Dick van Gameren, ir. Frederique van Andel
 
Project Advisors
Mulu Haile (Mission for Community Development Program, Addis Ababa), Thomaz Ramalho Machado Teixeira (UN Habitat), Dr Edo Abraham (TUD-CiTG)
 
User-committee
Senait Damtew, Timnit Eshetu (Addis Ababa City Government), Tsegaye Moshe (Ministry of Urban Development and Housing)
 
Project managers
Ir. Frederique van Andel (TUD-BK), Dr. Elias Yitbarek (EiABC)