Diale Takona |Thesis Research Booklet by Diale Takona

DIALE TAKONA 5TH YEAR B.ARCH RESEARCH BOOKLET

THESIS STATEMENT

AFROFUTURISM AND ITS ABILITY TO COMBINE FICTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES WITH AFROCENTRIC AESTHETICS CAN BE USED TO REIMAGINE AND CRITIQUE THE WAYS IN WHICH INFORMAL REFUGEE SETTLEMENTS TRANSITION INTO FORMAL CITIES

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.................................................... 06 KAKUMA REFUGEE CAMP, KENYA.................. 08 AFROFUTURISM EXPLAINED........................... 16 PAPER ARCHITECTURE....................................... 24 SHANTY BUILDING/INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS........................................................ 28 WHO ARE MY COLLEAGUES?........................... 32 CONCLUSION......................................................... 40

INTRODUCTION In this thesis, Afrofuturism is utilized as a tool to visualize what an African solution to the evergrowing population in the Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya could look like. Perhaps Kakuma can become a thriving futuristic community that contributes great financial wealth to the Kenyan government and a city where refugees can imagine creating a long-lasting and fulfilling life for themselves. The thesis explores movements such as; Afrofuturism, Paper Architecture, informal marketplaces as urban anchors, shanty building practices, and futuristic shanty town imagery. These explorations attempt to not only make sense of the very real transition that Kakuma Refugee camp is currently undergoing but also speculate about its possible future as an economically independent city. The title, “Europe is Not My Centre,” is a quote from a 1998 interview with Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène. In the interview, Oliver Barlet asks Sembène if his films are understood in Europe to which Sembene responds “Europe is not my center and I’m less concerned about the success of my films there” (Dewaele, 2007). He emphasizes that the target audience for his films is not in Europe so therefore it does not matter if his films are understood there. This statement embodies all that this thesis hopes to accomplish in its goals to envision the future of Kakuma not as a patchwork of humanitarian aid, but as a bustling city.

Kakuma, Kenya on Map of Africa

1998 interview with Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène.

KAKUMA REFUGEE CAMP Kakuma –termed “The Invisible City— was created in 1992 after the “Lost Boys of Sudan” arrived in the region. Located on the outskirts of Kakuma Town in the Turkana West District, Kakuma refugee camp began as a temporary settlement but has since grown to have a population of 196,666 residents as of July 2020 (“Kakuma and Kalobeyei population statistics”, n.d.). Like all other refugee camps, it was created as an emergency, temporary solution to people seeking asylum. However, the harsh reality of crises is that with little hope for resettlement, and the conditions in their countries of origin worsening, refugees living in Kakuma have no other option but to call this place their home. What started as a refugee camp decades ago now exists as a growing city of its own. There is an evolving culture of informal business ventures with refugees in Kakuma Camp holding jobs as drivers, teachers, guards, or translators. In the survey conducted by John Kluge, Timothy Docking, and Joanne Ke Edelman for the Refugee Investment Network, it was reported that 12% of refugees in Kakuma own businesses (Kluge et al., 2018). Most of the businesses are small corner stores, kiosks, food stalls, restaurants, and internet cafes. Located in a semi-arid desert, the surrounding areas do not provide much opportunity for agriculture. The area is known for extreme heat (40 degrees Celsius) during the day, infestations of snakes and scorpions, and frequent dust storms. Organizations such as UNHCR carry the responsibility of providing food and shelter for the people of Kakuma which usually is in the form of monthly rations. (Romportl, n.d.).

Map showing the various businesses in Kakuma

WOODEN GABLE FRAME SHELTER location: Ajuong Thok, South Sudan structure : bushwood, timber, bamboo roof Materials: tarpaulin, thatch, corrugated iron

wall meterial: tarpaulin, glass cladding, mud plastering, bamboo

floor options: tarpaulin, local natural material mat, platform open fire not reccomended inside Models i, ii, iii

Model i structure: Wood poles and brush sticks roof material: UNHCR tarpaulin wall material: UNHCR tarpaulin Dimensions: 13ft x 16ft area: 130ft2 estimated cost: $223

Model

structur and brus roof mat tarpaulin wall mat cladding floor ma tarpaulin Dimensio area: 13 estimated

transitional shelter global shelter “Shelter is contextual and there exists no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution which can be applied worldwide. Whilst emergency phase responses often o involve the provision of tents or emergency shelter, it is essential to ensure that shelter assistance programmes can evolve toward more durable and sustainable solutions maximizing, wherever possible, the use of local material, skills and building techniques.”

UNHCR Shelter and Settlement Section. (2016). Shelter Design Catalogue. https://cms.emergency.unhcr.org/documents/11982/57181/Sh elter+Design+Catalogue+January+2016

The Family Tent footprint: 700ft2 weight: 121.254lb volume: 7.0629ft3 cost: $420

framed Ten weight: 191 volume: 12 cost: $700 Ideal for U suitable fo uses less s than family

re: Wood poles sh sticks terial: UNHCR n terial: thatch g aterial: UNHCR n ons: 13ft x 10ft 30ft2 d cost: $229

nt 1.802lb 2.3601ft3 0 Urban areas or family of 5 surface area sur y tent

Model iii

Model iv

structure: Wood poles and brush sticks roof material: corrugated iron sheets wall material: thatch cladding floor material: UNHCR tarpaulin Dimensions: 13ft x 10ft area: 130ft2 estimated cost: $299

structure: Wood poles and brush sticks roof material: corrugated iron sheets and a mettalic rodge cap wall material: adobe plastering technique (bush sticks and plaster) floor material: UNHCR tarpaulin Dimensions: 13ft x 10ft area: 130ft2 estim estimated cost: $328

self-standing family Tent weight: 121.254lb volume: 7.0629ft3 cost: $420 enhances living space and comfort fire retardant re inner partition diveds space in two

REFUGEE HOUSING UNIT floor area: lightweight steel framing solar energy: 4h light/day modular weight: 352lb price: $1,150

AFROFUTURISM EXPLAINED For a long time, fictional worlds that depicted future universes lacked Black and Brown people. Afrofuturism emerged as a reaction to the lack of Black and brown people seen in science fiction books and movies. This movement combines historical fiction, digital fabrication, and Afroinspired imagery to imagine a future where problems concerning the African diaspora are solved without Western influence. Afrofuturism has its roots in music, literature, and the visual arts but has since evolved to include an infinite number of creative forms. At its core, however, the movement is about embracing the narrative that black people can be the heroes in their own stories and reclaim the narratives surrounding their existence. This research uses Ytasha L. Womack’s book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture as a foundational text to unpack the building blocks of this movement (Womack, 2013).

Afrofuturism deals with the major themes of otherness, feminism, reclamation of culture, utopian imagery, and the digital landscape. The ideas of otherness in the Afrofuturism movement stem from the belief that the way that Black people are treated in America could be comparable to how alien abductees are treated. The Transatlantic Slave Trade illustrates the narrative that black people were stolen from their land and now are forced to assimilate into American culture while still being othered because of their race. For this reason, the earliest onset of the Afrofuturism movement saw black creators trying to formulate spaces where they could feel safe and looking beyond planet Earth to find these spaces. This fascination with Black people trying to carve out space for themselves be it on Earth or as “aliens” on other planets is what led critic Mark Dery to investigate the reasons why there were only a few African American Science fiction writers.

In his essay “Black to the Future” Mark Dery points out that the unimaginable realities created in Science Fiction almost have a very direct correlation to the way that African-Americans have been forced to live. He writes “African-Americans, in a very real sense, are the descendants of alien abductees; they inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields of intolerance frustrate their movements…moreover, the sublegitimate status of science fiction as a pulp genre in Western literature mirrors the subaltern position to which blacks have been relegated through American history” (Dery, 1997). With this discovery, Mark Dery coined the term Afrofuturism which he defined as an investigation into science-fictional realities where African-American culture is examined in the context of newly emerging technology. He used this term to describe the conversations that were being had around blackness, science fiction, and the Cyberculture springing up in the 1980s and 1990s. Mark Dery and his colleagues Kodwo Eshun, Greg Tate, and Mark Sinker were among the first few thinkers to engage the dialogue that built Afrofuturism (Womack, 2013). Music had a major influence on the emergence of Afrofuturism because it created an avenue for new technologies and imagery to be explored. Artists such as Jimi Hendrix began using reverb on his guitar which up until this point was unheard of. According to Womack, the movement saw music that “[embodied] the times but literally sounded out of this world” (Womack, 2013 p. 55). Some of the notable Afrofuturist soundtracks include Sun Ra’s Space is the Place”, Parliament’s “Mothership Connection”, and Jimi Hendrix “Electric Ladyland”. “Space is the Place” by Sun Ra is considered as one of the most important musical pieces in Afrofuturism because it began to define an aesthetic for the movement. “Space is The Place” follows Sun Ra, a being from outer space, who returns to 1970s Oakland, California to convince young Black people to return to outer space with him. After competing in a card game with the satanic overlord The Overseer, holding a concert for the world, and almost being assassinated by the FBI, Sun Ra carries victory and saves his people in the nick of time (Northwest Film Center, 2019).

“Space is the Place” by Sun Ra

Parliament’s “Mothership Connection”

Science Fiction writer Octavia Butler

Sun Ra in his film “Space is the Place”

Marshall Allen of Sun Ra Arkestra in concert

“THE IDEA OF USING SCI-FI AND SPECULATIVE FICTION TO SPUR SOCIAL CHANGE, TO REEXAMINE RACE, AND TO EXPLORE SELF-EXPRESSION FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR, THEN, IS CLEARLY NOTHING NEW. THE BLACK VISIONARIES OF THE PAST WHO SOUGHT TO ALLEVIATE THE DEBILITATING SYSTEM AND END THE RACIAL DIVIDE USED THESE GENRES AS DEVICES TO ARTICULATE THEIR ISSUES AND VISIONS.” - YTASHA L. WOMACK

h Sun Ra and George Clinton used music to h the boundaries of musical technology at the e to create new sounds and channel imagery allowed black people to place themselves he Cosmos. The messages prevalent in ofuturism not only spread quickly through ic, but the popularization of the internet sped his process.

inception of the internet allowed Afrofuturism each a larger audience because it facilitated asier way to engage in these kinds of versations. Alondra Nelson launched an L listserv in the 1990s where college students d gather to discuss space, technology, black ure, and art with science fiction as the lens ugh which the topics were being examined mack, 2013 p. 18). Nelson used this listserv to nect with more people who were interested in overing the ties that science fiction shared with k culture in America. The conversations in the erv uncovered that in the history of African ing and art, there existed an embracing of the ernatural as a way to challenge existing power ctures. These power structures ranged from onialism and White Supremacism to Racism Sexism. However, they were often explored ugh the world of Science Fiction. Afrofuturism holds Sun Ra, George Clinton, and Science on writer, Octavia Butler as figureheads of the vement.

fictional world exaggerates real-world blems in an attempt to expose the true nature hese issues. For example, the film District 9 the story of an alien species nicknamed “The wns” who appear in Johannesburg, South ca in 1982. The humans place them in refugee ps in order to provide them with the basic ds of survival but there is minimal government rt directed towards the upkeep of this ement and it begins to deteriorate.

A member of the alien population from the film District 9

The alien invasion scene from the film District 9

“IMPROVISATION, ADAPTABILITY, AND IMAGINATION ARE THE CORE COMPONENTS OF THIS RESISTANCE AND ARE EVIDENT BOTH IN THE ARTS AND BLACK CULTURES AT LARGE.” - YTASHA L. WOMACK

28 years later the refugee camp is an eyesore and the government tasks the Munitions Corporation with forcefully evicting the alien population. In addition to this forced eviction, the aliens are also ostracized in society, they are looked down upon, and they are generally not welcomed amongst the locals (Chisholm, 2009). This is all reminiscent of how black South Africans were treated during Apartheid, the time period that inspired this movie. District 9 was based on true events that took place in South Africa’s District 6 neighborhood during the time of Apartheid. District 6 was a thriving community of about 55,000 non-white people. The community was described as a cultural hub until the 1940s when the South African government declared it a ‘White’s only’ area. This is when they began to demolish homes and implement the forceful relocation of all South Africans in the neighborhood who were not white. The neighborhood became a famous example of the suffering that apartheid inflicted on South Africa as a nation hence the reason that movies like District 9 began to find ways to tell its story. Using Science Fiction to tell this story put into perspective the massive injustice that people who were perceived to be different or even alien endured in District 6. This practice of using fiction as a means to critique society rings true in a lot of Afrofuturist works to date (District six, n.d.).

Map of District 6

District 6 prior to February 11, 1966 when it was declared a “White’s Only“ area

PAPER ARCHITECTURE The aesthetics in Afrofuturism were created not with the intention to ever be translated into reality, but instead to expose injustices in society. For that reason, one could draw parallels between Afrofuturism and the Paper Architecture movement. Paper Architecture was a movement that spurred in Soviet Russia in 1984 when a group of Architecture students from the Moscow Architectural Institute began to create imaginative, dystopian works that criticized the dehumanizing nature of Soviet Architecture. Soviet Architecture featured buildings that were cheaply made with not much care allotted to their design. Yuri Avvakumov, Micheal Belov, and Alexander Brodsky are thought to be the originators of the movement (“Yuri Avvakumov”, n.d.). The movement spread through a series of competition entries. International competitions served as a good vehicle to explore the ideas of whimsy in architecture because these competitions existed outside of the strict constraints of Soviet Architecture. Drawings allowed these young architects to create buildings beyond their wildest dreams. The common elements in their work were “precariously drawn scaffolding buildings, classical domes, glass towers” (Piepenbring, 2015). The aesthetic of this movement also borrows from Post-modern imagery. This movement was a blatant form of protest because it showed a direct reaction to being artistically suppressed. In looking at the pieces from the Paper Architecture movement “Contemporary Architectural Art Museum”, “Doll’s House” and “Glass Tower II” the theme of the sublime rings true (Onion, 2015). All of these pieces aim to make a commentary on the existential dread that people at this time seem to be feeling. This dread was fueled by the monotony of modern architecture.

“Contemporary Architectural Art Museum” by Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin

“Doll’s House” by Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin

“Glass Tower II” a piece by Paper Architect duo Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin aims to formulate a critique by presenting an alternate universe where a tower is created to project an image to the city of any man that walks into the tower. This commentary calls to question the idea that perhaps the creation of these lifeless towers during the time period in Soviet Russia was a reflection of the human ego (Meier, 2015). The skyscrapers existed only as symbols of power and the only way to make other people feel the intensity of this critique was to create these kinds of exaggerated illustrations. The duo’s other piece, “Columbarium Habitabile” tells the story of a museum created to mourn the death of the communal apartments torn down to build modern high-rise apartment buildings in the city. The title of this etching translates to “Museum of Disappearing Buildings” and shows older buildings being preserved in the same way one would preserve the ashes of a dead loved one. The narrative in this museum is that each of these buildings begs for the attention of the visitors to the museum so much so that if someone overlooks one of them, the massive ball in the middle swings to destroy it. The drawing is nostalgic about a time before modernization where people were perceived to have more individuality and self-expression. Paper Architects were rejecting the elimination of these classical houses because they were a large part of Russian history. The most common type of housing in the Soviet Union before the 1980s was the communal apartment. The group of families that lived in these communal apartments would share a kitchen, bathroom, and telephone room. Although this style of living grew to be unhygienic, inefficient, and cramped, Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin associated communal apartments with feelings of nostalgia hence the reason their reactions to modernism were so strong. They began to create buildings that would store their feelings of nostalgia towards past forms of building and clearly illustrate their disdain for modernization. The museum setting was chosen in an attempt to preserve not only architecture but to preserve childhood memories as well (Crowley, 2012).

Columbarium Habitabile by Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin

“Glass Tower II” by Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin

SHANTY TOWNS

SHAN·TY (n.) / ’ shan(t)ē/ A small, crudely built shack.

Shanty towns are a form of informal settlement found on the outskirts of large cities. They are sometimes referred to as squatter settlements and are usually built on land that was previously considered uninhabitable (Sheth, 2017). It is not uncommon for these types of settlements to lack urban planning, established sewer systems, or access to clean water (“What are shanty towns / favelas?”, 2018). The populations in these settlements are often impoverished with most people working either domestic jobs or trade jobs. The largest shanty towns globally are Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa; Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya; and Dharavi in Mumbai, India. Shanty towns develop for many reasons but the three main ones discussed in this thesis are rooted in racial discrimination, colonization, the East African refugee crisis, and poverty. This research does not aim to turn a blind eye to the often dangerous and unlivable conditions in shanty towns, but instead aims to highlight some of the positive factors that occur as a result of their growth. Exploring shanty towns also requires an exploration of the parameters that define one type of living as formal and another type of living as informal. For the sake of this thesis, informal cities are defined by “extra-legal housing and unregistered economic activities” (Hansen & Vaa, 2004, p. 5). These settlements are usually on government-owned land but the government does not have any obligation to the people living on these unregulated plots of land. For this reason, people living in informal cities are often tasked with building their own homes, finding jobs in markets that are unregulated by the government, and creating their own infrastructure to support their lifestyle. Conversely, formal cities “[consist] of the urban government and its agents, institutions and rules and regulations that over time have been introduced in order to control urban space and economic life (Hansen & Vaa, 2004, p. 8).

Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa

Dharavi in Mumbai, India

Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya

“CAPE TOWN WAS CONCEIVED WITH A WHITE-ONLY CENTRE, SURROUNDED BY CONTAINED SETTLEMENTS FOR THE BLACK AND COLOURED LABOUR FORCES TO THE EAST, EACH HEMMED IN BY HIGHWAYS AND RAIL LINES, RIVERS AND VALLEYS, AND SEPARATED FROM THE AFFLUENT WHITE SUBURBS BY PROTECTIVE BUFFER ZONES OF SCRUBLAND” - OLIVER WAINWRIGHT

Both formal and informal and formal cities present their own set of issues. The biggest problem, however, is that while formal housing aims to present a solution that fits people’s basic needs, the methodological system of building cannot keep up with the rapid growth of the city. Informal settlements allow for housing to go up quickly because there are no laws to bypass. One does not have to think about zoning laws, building codes, and legal issues when building in an informal settlement because the process functions on a more individual basis (Hansen & Vaa, 2004). These housing restrictions are not designed to accommodate rapid growth and they are also not designed to create cheap housing solutions for poorer populations of people (Hansen & Vaa, 2004). Khayelitsha Township, Cape Town, South Africa With a population of 2.4 million people estimated to be living in the Cape Town slum of Khayelitsha, it is considered one of the largest informal settlements in the world. Its creation dates back to Apartheid and it exists as a reminder of that dark period in South African history. To understand the history of Khayelitsha, one must first understand the history of Apartheid and how it resulted in the creation of Townships. Apartheid was “a system of legislation that upheld segregationists’ policies against non-white citizens of South Africa” (History.com Editors, 2010). It officially began in 1948 after the all-white political party, the National Party took control of the South African government. They enforced laws and regulations that restricted everything that non-white people could do including where they could and could not live. This resulted in the creation of Townships. Townships were areas of the city designated for Black residents only (History.com Editors, 2010).

Division of Captown by race during Apartheid

During Apartheid the city center was marked as a “White-only“ area. This graphic shows how land was allocated to other races with Africans pushed to the extreme boundary of the city.

In order for these residents to venture into other parts of Cape Town that were designated as “white-only” spaces, they had to carry special documentation to identify themselves. The Group Areas Act adopted in 1950 established these different areas of the city as places for different races to occupy. These areas were often located so far outside the city that black people were forced to commute long distances to get to work. This led to the creation of illegal/informal settlements such as the Crossroads neighborhood. Crossroads was created when workers were forcefully removed from Brown’s Farm and relocated to a barren piece of land. When they arrived, there was no infrastructure set up and they had to develop housing from the scraps they could find (Wainwright, 2014). In 1975, the population of Crossroads was forcefully evicted again and moved to Khayelitsha (“Crossroads Township”, n.d.). In recent years, Khayelitsha has grown into a city with a vibrant economy. 75% of the population still live in shanty homes and the remaining percentage live in government-built homes. The most common forms of employment in the area are domestic workers, services work, skilled manual labor, unskilled manual labor, and security (“About Khayelitsha”, n.d.). Although the living conditions in this township are unideal and at times unsafe, the community has still found a way to “incrementally [transform] its neighborhoods and settlements… into vibrant spaces with a unique mix of spaza shops, hairdressers, carpenters, welders, and other informal traders and service providers” (Cole, 2013). The creativity that comes with the need to improvise is of great importance to the central ideas being explored in this thesis.

Khayelitsha, South Africa

WHO ARE MY COLLEAGUES? In combining the various areas of research present in this thesis; Afrofuturism, Paper Architecture, Shanty building methods, shantytown organizational structures, and the Kakuma refugee camp, one can identify a few precedent projects. The projects that will be examined in this research include “Shanty Megastructures” by Olalekan Jeyifous, Warwick Junction in Durban, South Africa, “Agbogbloshie Makerspace platform” by Yasmine Abbas and Low Design Office, and “Fictional Futuristic Shantytowns” by Dionisio Gonzalez. These projects can be grouped into two categories – projects that deal with the scale of the building and projects that tackle the scale of the city. “Shanty Megastructures” and “Fictional Futuristic Shantytowns” are speculative works about how buildings in shanty towns could exist in the near future. Warwick Junction and “Agbogbloshie Makerspace platform” demonstrate how informal market spaces can act as urban anchors. Combined, the study of both scales could begin to create the basis for a design imagining the future of Kakuma Refugee Camp.

“FICTIONAL FUTURISTIC SHANTYTOWNS” BY DIONISIO GONZALEZ

Dionisio Gonzalez is a visual artist from Spain specializing in Surreal architectural representations. Much like the Paper Architectures in Soviet Russian, and the Afrofuturist writers, the whimsy in Gonzalez’s work is intended to create a space for him to make “philosophical, political, sociological, historical statements” (Dionisio González Archives, 2017). His project “Fictional Futuristic Shantytowns” was inspired by his extensive travels through the Favelas in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His designs for these futuristic Favelas blend the patchwork nature of traditional shanty building practices with the steel and glass elements of modern architecture to create a hybridized form of living. He describes his creations as architecture that combines “chaos and beauty”. A lot of his designs are driven by reimaging favelas as more structurally sound dwellings through the use of concrete elements. While introducing these new elements, he still preserves the old ones as an ode to their history and to the people that built them.

OLALEKAN JEYIFOUS “SHANTY MEGASTRUCTURES”

Olalekan Jeyifous is a Nigerian-American Visual Artist based in New York. A lot of his works centers around bringing to light injustices that black people in Africa and the African Diaspora face. He accomplishes this by exaggerating them through Afrofuturistic imagery. His project “Shanty Megastructures” features a series of photographs showing Lagos, Nigeria with these highrises constructed in the patchwork style of shanty homes. the massive high-rises were created to shed light on the fact that those living in Shanty towns are often neglected in the city. “The dispossessed are given prominence and visibility, albeit through a somewhat dystopian vision, which highlights that these communities often suffer from a lack of appropriate sanitation, electricity, medical services, and modern communications” (Gibson, 2016).

Agbogbloshie Makerspace platform Agbogbloshie, Ghana is known as the world’s largest dump for electronics making it an environmentally toxic place for its residents. Architects Yasmine Abbas and Architecture firm Low Design Office set put to design a network of maker space structures for the people of Agbogbloshie. Their design was centered around reframing the narrative used to discuss this community from one of pity to one of possibility. It was paramount to their design for the maker space to rebrand Agbogbloshie as an “urban-scale openair manufactory” (Potter et al., 2019) instead of an “e-waste dump”. The conditions that existed for this design include a large network of technicians in the area who refurbish the electronics that are sent there and then resell them on a larger market. The design aimed to create a modular structure that could serve multiple functions and aid in the organization of this open-air manufactory (Frearso, 2016). At the core of the design, the maker spaces are created “ to assist grassroots makers to gather the resources and tools that they need for their specific area of production, to learn through shared practice and to produce better quality items in larger quantities” (Potter et al., 2019). Using an iron truss frame and recycled tires, the mobile workstation can be assembled quickly and efficiently. The architecture can stand alone or be replicated as a system throughout Agbogbloshie. The project embodies the duality of creating African futures through recycling the already existing building methods, but at the same time introducing new technology to elevate the already existing systems. This design approach shifts from the usual “what’s the problem?” to “What’s possible?” (Potter et al., 2019). This is the kind of design thinking necessary to ensure that as a society, we are not labeling everything that did not originate in the western world as intrinsically flawed but instead looking at the possibilities that they hold.

Warwick Junction Warwick Junction is South Africa’s largest commerce and transportation hub. It is composed of three different markets located on a repurposed highway. Historically, informal traders have been shunned and discouraged especially under the Group Areas Act passed during Apartheid. In 1973, the Natal Ordinance was introduced and which allowed informal traders to operate their businesses but under very strict rules and regulations. They could not legally sell goods in the same place for more than 15 minutes which limited the scope of products they were able to sell (“Warwick Junction Urban Renewal Project”, n.d.). During apartheid, Warwick Junction served as the sole entry point for black people into the city of Durban which was considered a “whites-only” part of the city. Today, the area has “over 460,000 commuters pass through the transport node every day, making use of the main railway station, the five bus terminals, and nineteen taxi stands. Additionally, the area attracts large numbers of street traders: between 6000 and 8000 street traders engage in a variety of activities ranging from traditional medicine, clothing, food, music, fresh produce, arts and crafts” (Karssenberg et al., 2016, p. 243). All the areas of commerce are organized into 9 different markets on the site. Although Warwick junction has existed for years, it was not until 1995 that there was an official governmental push to revitalize it into a commerce hub. The redesign required planners to really study the patterns of informal traders in order to create an effective community for them to thrive in. the design was based upon how the traders interacted with each other, how they interacted with their customers, the kinds of goods they sold, and the ways in which they acquired these goods. taking these factors into account allowed planners to create low-cost ways to organize the space. Some of the major changes they made were, increasing the size of pedestrian pathways, providing access to water and electricity, adding places for traders to store goods, and adding shading structures (Karssenberg et al., 2016)

CONCLUSION In this thesis, Afrofuturism is utilized as a way to visualize what an African solution to the evergrowing population in the Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya could look like. Perhaps Kakuma can become a thriving, commerce-based community that contributes great financial wealth to the Kenyan government.

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Diale Takona |Thesis Research Booklet

Articles inside

CONCLUSION

PAPER ARCHITECTURE

AFROFUTURISM EXPLAINED

WHO ARE MY COLLEAGUES?

INTRODUCTION