Investigating the interrelation between patterns of inhabitation and the morphological and typological characteristics of housing settlements, the Global Housing Research Seminar was another course that contributed to the development of the Addis Ababa Living Lab project. Seeking a comparative study of architectural ethnography, the seminar featured fieldwork experiences in both Rotterdam and Addis Ababa, exposing students to significantly contrasting exemplifications of urban qualities. In utilizing tools of participatory research, students were prompted to explore the relations between space, place, and people, stimulating the use of architectural drawings as a privileged support to present the results of the investigation. These significant connections between social practices and their spatial manifestations were uniquely translated into the form of graphic-novels, presenting significant research findings through real-life narratives combining both architectural and ethnographic techniques. With the unification of observational techniques and innovative visual representation, the course’s human-centered methodology served to enhance the students’ awareness of the interdependence between design decisions and everyday patterns of inhabitation. View the student work produced in this course here.
Output
Due to interdisciplinary contributions, the Addis Ababa Living project Lab has resulted in multiple outputs, both via research as well as educational programs. Ranging from extensive textual analyses to masters-level design proposals, the outputs reflect the array of parallel investigations within the project. Aside from the strong literary content developed through PhD 1 and PhD 2, the project outcomes also include complimentary content from academic work produced by TU Delft architecture students. From design proposals for alternative solutions for social housing that respond specifically to dwelling conditions of Addis Ababa to ethnographic studies which creatively unfolded into a graphic novel format, the project’s output library is considerably extensive.
Visit the output page here
