The Case of Mlalakuwa- Dar es Salaam-Tanzania

 

This project focuses on the transformation of collective spaces into sustainable community spaces in informal settlements that are defined by an interstitial position in the urban fabric. In urbanism, interstitial informal settlements are settlements that are located in between several strongly defined activity clusters. Unlike the case of informal settlements that are defined by a more peripheric position in the urban fabric or without the near adjacency of larger activity clusters, interstitial informal settlements have a strong potential for sustainable development, precisely through the consolidation of its constituent collective spaces, that are socially and economically linked to these larger activity clusters. This doctoral research studies seek to analyse the position, capacity, accessibility, physical transformation, and the socio-cultural role of the emergent neighborhood’s collective spaces as keystones for sustainable development of the larger informal settlement. The study, working on a case called ‘Mlalakuwa neighbourhood’ in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, seeks to produce insights on the emergence and consolidation of collective spaces in interstitial informal settlements and will formulate insights for the transformation of these collective spaces into safe and vital community places, relating to the adjacent activity clusters (two universities, an army station, and a commercial Centre) and this way responding to the communities’ economic and socio-cultural needs.

 

PhD Candidate
Jacob Lutta

Promotors
Prof. Dr. Yves Schoonjans (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Prof. Aldo Modestus Lupala (Ardhi University-Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)

Assessors
Prof. Dr. Pieter Van den Broeck. (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Arch. Dr. Daniel Mbisso. (Ardhi University-Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)