Lessons of Informality

Lessons of Informality

Felix Heisel Bisrat Kifle (eds.)

Lessons of Informality

Birkhäuser Basel

Architecture and Urban Planning for Emerging Territories – Concepts from Ethiopia

This publication has been carried out in a cooperation with the Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel, ETH Zürich and Futures Cities Laboratory Singapore (FCL) at the Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC). Layout, cover design and typography  Miriam Bussmann, Berlin Copy-editing  Jayne Kelley, Montréal Project management  Ria Stein, Berlin Production Amelie Solbrig, Berlin Paper  Hello Fat Matt 1.1, 135 g/m² Printing  Beltz Bad Langensalza GmbH

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publications Date A CIP catalogue record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained. This publication is also available as an e-book (ISBN PDF 978-3-0356-0670-6; ISBN EPUB 978-3-0356-0672-0). © 2016 Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel P.O. Box 44, 4009 Basel, Switzerland Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF ∞ Printed in Germany ISBN 978-3-0356-0669-0 987654321 www.birkhauser.com

Contents  11

Contents Preface: From documentaries to architectural strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12 Introduction: Informality in emerging territories  Felix Heisel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14

Space creation and a sense of responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Housing in an informally grown city  Fasil Giorghis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42 Landownership and the leasehold system  Wubshet Berhanu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  53 A “new” Addis Ababa  Marjan Kloosterboer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  62 The ruralization of urban centres in Ethiopia  Heyaw Terefe, Felix Heisel. . . . . . . .  71

Social, cultural and traditional context  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Social dynamics and development  Alula Pankhurst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  81 Persisting meaning and evolving spaces  Genet Alem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  93 Bottom-up insurance systems  Bisrat Kifle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  108

Self-employment as economic empowerment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 The economic importance of recycling  Felix Heisel, Bisrat Kifle. . . . . . . . . . . . . .  121 Microeconomies, a formalized strategy  Lia GabreMariam W.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  129 Addis Ababa, a rental city  Perrine Duroyaume. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  134 City preservation through tourism  Tadesse Girmay Gebreegziabher. . . . . . . . . . .  142

Paradigm shifts in urban strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 From density to intensity  Felix Heisel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  157 Materializing informality  Dirk E. Hebel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  166 Building laws for innovation  Elias Yitbarek, Felix Heisel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  171 Decentralized infrastructural systems  Tesfaye Hailu Bekele. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  177

Spatial dialogic  Sascha Delz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  190 _Spaces / The documentary series  Felix Heisel, Bisrat Kifle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  201 Editors and contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  214 Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  220 Illustration credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  222 DVD _Spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Backcover

Editors and contributors  215

Editors Felix Heisel is an architect and researcher currently working in the Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction of Dirk E. Hebel at the ETH Zürich as well as the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore. He has previously taught and lectured at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, and the Berlin University of the Arts. His extensive research on informal processes led him, among other publications and design proposals, to establish the documentary series ­_Spaces in 2011. Bisrat Kifle is an architect currently engaged in teaching and research work at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa. From 2008 to 2009, he taught design studios at the ETH Zürich in the Chair of Architecture and Design of Marc Angélil, where he collaborated on different research projects, including the Addis_Urban Laboratory. Bisrat has designed various neighbourhoods while working for the Grand Housing Programme in Addis Ababa in addition to practising in his own office, which won the prize for best affordable low-cost housing in Ethiopia in 2011. In the same year, he co-initiated the research project _Spaces.

Contributors Genet Alem is a lecturer in International Planning Studies at the School of Spatial Planning at Dortmund University of Technology, where she is also a guest lecturer at the PLIQ (Spatial Planning Education in Iraq) programme. Previously, she worked for several years at the Addis Ababa Works and Urban Development Bureau as an architect and lectured on land and property management at the Ethiopian Civil Service University. Genet holds a PhD and MSc in Urban and Regional Planning from TU Dortmund and an architecture degree from La CUJAE in Havana, Cuba. The built environment and multiculturalism in the dynamics and formations of urban spaces are her research interest. Thomas Aquilina is a designer and researcher in Cambridge. He has practised and researched architecture and urban design for architectural studios in London, the research centre LSE Cities at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in Nairobi.

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Thomas’s ongoing research explores the architectures of downtown African cities, particularly focusing on the emergent social implications of everyday spatial practices for designing in conditions of informal growth. Wubshet Berhanu is an Associate Professor and holds an MSc in urban design and a PhD in urban and regional planning. For more than twenty-five years, Wubshet taught at the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning at Addis Ababa University. He then continued as Head of Department and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Technology-South (now the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development) for over ten years. He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals on urban pattern analysis, urban land and housing developments, and urban policy. From 2006 to 2008, he served as City Manager of Addis Ababa. Wubshet is a founding member of the Association of Ethiopian Architects (AEA) and the winner of the 2014 AEA Urban and Regional Planning award. Sascha Delz is an architect and researcher working at the intersection of architecture, urban design and urban studies. After collaborating with Diller Scofidio + Renfro in New York, he worked as an exhibition designer, design instructor and researcher at the Department of Architecture at the ETH Zürich and the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore. In addition to his MArch, he completed his PhD at the ETH Zürich in 2015, investigating urban transformations under the premise of international development cooperation in Ethiopia. Currently teaching in the Chair of Architecture and Design of Marc Angélil, Sascha directs the seminar Urban Mutations on the Edge. Perrine Duroyaume has conducted research on urban development in Ethio­ pia for more than ten years, including in Debre Berhan on an urban sanitation programme and in Gondar for a cultural development project. Interested in changing Ethiopian cities, she has focused her fieldwork research on housing access in Addis Ababa during a crucial period, from 2005 to 2010. For the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies, she has coordinated workshops to promote urban research on Ethiopia. Currently, she is the programme officer at F3E, a network supporting French NGOs and local authorities. Lia GabreMariam W. has extensive experience working in the urban sector as both a researcher and a practitioner. She worked for the city administration of Addis Ababa on the revision of its master plan fifteen years ago, and is now working

Editors and contributors  217

as a consultant on the integrated plan for the city and its surroundings. She headed the national-level urban policy research and planning department and currently serves as a lecturer at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development. She has an MA in Urban Management and is a PhD candidate at Addis Ababa University and the Université libre de Bruxelles.  Fasil Giorghis is Associate Professor of architecture and Chairholder of Conservation of Urban and Architectural Heritage at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa. Since the late 1980s, he has studied the architectural heritage of Ethiopia from traditional housing to historic towns and contributed articles to numerous local and international conferences. In 2008, he published a book entitled Addis Ababa: The City and

Its Urban and Architectural Heritage from 1886–1941. In his private practice he has designed hotels, cultural centres, schools and residences, and worked on the restoration of historic buildings. His design work combines the use of local materials and indigenous knowledge with environmental awareness. Tadesse Girmay Gebreegziabher is an Ethiopian architect / urban planner (BSc) and archaeologist / building conservator (MA; both degrees from Addis Ababa University). Tadesse is currently a lecturer at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa and works as architect on the conservation of the medieval church of Yimrehane Krestos in Lalibela and as the local project manager of the Warka Water project. Previously, Tadesse contributed to the structural plans of the UNESCO World Heritage cities Axum and Harar and the local development plan of Hakim Gara, designed more than thirty buildings in Ethiopia and jointly published a book on Ethiopian architecture. Dirk E. Hebel is Assistant Professor of Architecture and Construction at the ETH Zürich and the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore. Prior to that, he was the founding Scientific Director of the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa. Between 2002 and 2009, he taught in the Chair of Architecture and Design of Marc Angélil at the Department of Architecture of the ETH Zürich, held a guest professorship at Syracuse Univer­sity, and taught as a guest lecturer at Princeton University. Work resulting from his teaching and research has been published in numerous books and academic journals. Dirk practises architecture by activating unusual building materials.

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Tesfaye Hailu Bekele is Chairholder of Infrastructure Design and Construction at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development (EiABC) in Addis Ababa. Tesfaye graduated from Addis Ababa University in Civil Engineering in 2001. He then joined Arba Minch University as a graduate assistant. In 2005 he received a Master’s in Municipal Water and Infrastructure from UNESCO-IHE Delft. He is also a registered professional and has contributed to water-related urban infrastructure projects in Ethiopia. Currently, he is a PhD student in the EiABC Urban and Regional Planning Program and an affiliate student at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Marjan Kloosterboer is a postgraduate lecturer and researcher in Urban Sociology at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa. She received her Master’s in Sustainable Development (International Development Studies) from Utrecht University in 2014 and is currently pursuing her PhD in Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow. Her PhD topic addresses the citywide renewal of Addis Ababa, specifically the adverse impacts of redevelopment on the urban population and how the “new Addis” fits within the wider debate of “new cities” internationally.  Alula Pankhurst grew up in Addis Ababa and studied Arabic and Geez at Oxford University and social anthropology at Manchester University, where he completed his PhD. He taught at Addis Ababa University, where he was Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, for sixteen years. He is currently Ethiopia Country Director of Young Lives and Manager of Pankhurst Development Research and Consulting Plc. His research interests include migration and displacement, poverty and well-being, food security and social protection, marginalization and social exclusion, social institutions and conflict resolution, longer-term impacts of development interventions, and child and youth development. Heyaw Terefe is Assistant Professor in the Chair of Theory and History of Architecture and Urbanism at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa. At the institute, he is currently the Director of Research, Publication and Communication Services, as well as PhD thesis supervisor. Heyaw received his PhD in Urban Planning and Design in 2005 from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, following an MArch in architecture and urban design in Helsinki in 1988. His research interests include community-based urban renewal, public sector urban design and the architectural history of Ethiopia.

Editors and contributors  219

Marta H. Wisniewska is currently working as a researcher and teaching assistant in the Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction of Dirk E. Hebel at the ETH Zürich and the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore. Previously, she was engaged as a lecturer and first-year architectural programme coordinator at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa. Her interest in Africa’s informal processes led to an extensive photographic documentation of and numerous publications on the underlying qualities of Addis Ababa. Elias Yitbarek, an architect and urban planner, is Assistant Professor in the Chair of Housing at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa. He obtained his MArch from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (1996), and his PhD from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (2008). He has taught and lectured at various univer­ sities in both bachelor’s and master’s programmes. As a practitioner, he has realized a number of projects ranging from single buildings to urban-level housing interventions. His writings focus on slum upgrading, housing, inner-city redevelopment and the education of architects. Current research areas include inner-city redevelopment and sustainable rural dwellings.

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Acknowledgements The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to all contributors featured in this book for their involvement and support. Further, we offer our special thanks to the Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC) for Global Environmental Sustainability and the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL), particularly SEC Director Prof. Dr Peter Edwards and SEC Managing Director Dr Remo Burkhard, as well as the editorial team of the FCL Book Publishing Fund, specifically Prof. Dr Marc Angélil, FCL Programme Director Prof. Dr Stephen Cairns, Prof. Christophe Girot, FCL Programme Coordinator Prof. Kees Christiaanse, and Prof. Dr Christian Schmid. Additionally, we thank the Department of Architecture of the ETH Zürich, specifically Dean Prof. Annette Spiro and Former Dean Prof. Hubert Klumpner. For his continued support in the making of the documentary film series

_Spaces and this subsequent publication, we would like to extend our warmest gratitude to Assistant Professor Dirk E. Hebel in his role at the FCL Singapore and the ETH Zürich, but especially as the Former Scientific Director of the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development (EiABC). His initial encouragement laid the groundwork for Lessons of Informality. The spirit of _Spaces lies in its courageous protagonists, who invited us into their homes and shared their lives, worries and joys with us. For this we owe a special thank you to W/ro Etenesh Legesse, Ato Feleke Abebaw, Ato Gizachew Takele, Ato Kiros Moltot, Ato Kore Wogsema, Ato Mengistu Tujuba, W/ro Meselu Masre, Ato Shewalem Abza, W/ro Tigist Tibebu, Ato Wondante Yaye, W/ro Yeshihareg Kassa and the undaunted protagonist of Materializing Spaces, his carpenter and local helpers. Further, we would like to thank our expert interview partners Ato Abraham Workeneh, Ato Berhanu Gebrewold, Prof. Dr Dirk Donath, Dr Elias Yitbarek, Ato Fasil Giorghis, Dr Heyaw Terefe, Ato Kamil Abdela, W/ro Mulu Solomon and Dr Zegeye Cherenet. For the financial support in realizing this film series, we warmly thank the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development, as well as the ETH Zürich, the FCL Singapore, the German Embassy in Addis Ababa, the Goethe-Institut Addis Abeba and the Alliance EthioFrançaise d’Addis-Ababa.

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The team from next studio plc., particularly Ato Tewodros Yifru, Ato Adane Assefa and Ato Begashaw Asnake, made this documentary film series possible through their unrelenting dedication and willingness to film despite time and weather. A big thank you also to Josef Mayerhofer for the preparation of the DVD included in this publication and the final editing of all films. Last but not least, we would like to thank photographers Thomas Aquilina and Marta H. Wisniewska for opening their image archives to us. We would also like to extend our gratitude to Jayne Kelley for her incredible work in copy-editing, to Miriam Bussmann, the graphic designer of this book, and to Ria Stein of Birkhäuser, whose advice contributed to the book in your hands.

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Ilustration credits Aquilina, Thomas  6–10, 50, 51, 157, 160, 163, 191, 192, 197 (left and right) Assistant Professorship Dirk E. Hebel, ETH Zürich (Hadrien L’Hoste)  23, 24, 158    based on illustrations by EiABC  29, 161    based on illustrations by Genet Alem  95, 98    based on illustrations by Ignazio Giudi and Cesare Valle  45 (left)    based on illustrations by Peter Lacy and Jakob Rutqvist  122    based on illustrations by Safaricom  19    based on Gleichen in Pankhurst (1966:151) and Genet Alem  103    based on Griaul in Pankhurst (1966:112) and Genet Alem  102    based on Guébré Sellassié in Pankhurst (1966) and Genet Alem  101    based on Kropp (1988: 232) and Genet Alem  100 Block Research Group, ETH Zürich  168 (left) CNES / Google (2016)

109 (left and right), 193

Damasceno, Tiago and Olaf Kammler  72 (right) Duroyaume, Perrine  138 (left and right), 139 (left and right) Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zürich / Photo: Alfred Ilg. VMZ    804.01.005 and VMZ 800.03.013  43 Fasil Giorghis  48 Genet Alem  ­  based on De Young (1967)  94, 105 (left and right) Gérard, Denis  45 (right) Heisel, Felix  Cover image, 25, 72 (left), 83, 112, 121, 124 (left and right), 177,   204, 208, 210, 212    based on data from UN Population Division  18    based on rankings by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank  21 Heisel, Felix and Bezaiet Alemahehu B.  26 Heisel, Felix and EiABC Chair of Architecture and Design I  27 Jonkers, Henk M.  169 (left and right) Kloosterboer, Marjan  65 (left) Palma, Cristobal  162 (left and right) Tadesse Girmay Gebreegziabher  143, 145, 147 (left and right) Tesfaye Hailu Bekele  180, 183 Wisniewska, Marta H.  20, 37–41, 65 (right), 66, 67, 73 (left and right), 77–80, 82,   87, 93, 110 (left and right), 117–120, 123 (left and right), 126, 129, 131 (left and right), 152–156, 167, 168 (right), 171, 175, 205, 207, 209, 214

_Spaces / Documentaries

by Felix Heisel and Bisrat Kifle

Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development Addis Ababa University

© Felix Heisel / Bisrat Kifle 2016 www.spacesmovie.com