as a Catalyzer of Housing Quality Enhancement in Colombia: Tervi

The evolution of cities in Latin America has been shaped by a complex interplay of factors, including political history, informality, geography, and culture. With one of the highest rates of urbanization in the world, the region’s urban centers have experienced a surge in makeshift settlements as governments struggle to meet demand and provide affordable housing. The result is a critical housing deficit, both in terms of quantity and quality, which requires innovative solutions from both the government and the private sector. The narrative in this thesis unfolds exploring the housing deficit in the region, focusing specifically on Colombia’s case and the implications of the existing social housing system on the market. By examining the actors involved, the policy framework, and the current status quo, I sought to reveal the potential for local governments, developers, entrepreneurship, and technology to play a more influential role in addressing the quality gap. In 2021, I co-founded Tervi, a platform designed to provide low- and mid-income homeowners in Colombia access to design, financing, and construction services to improve their substandard dwellings and dignify their living conditions. Drawing on my experiences in conceiving, developing, and engaging with families, communities, and stakeholders during the deployment of the minimum viable product and proof of concept, this thesis highlights the potential of tech-enabled solutions to have a direct impact on life quality through home improvements. Furthermore, the thesis explores potential alternatives to address housing quality deficiencies and challenges the notion of the qualitative deficit as a fixed threshold for classifying the complex concept of home. It argues that factors such as livability and well-being are equally important in the creation of just and comfortable living conditions, and that policies must take these factors into account to avoid perpetuating substandard housing.

The outcome of the process outlined in this thesis is a digital platform that aims to bridge the gap between much of the homeowner population in Colombia and access to high-quality standard homes. In essence, a platform that provides home improvement as a service supporting social housing homeowners in transforming their incomplete dwellings by using technology to optimize their resources and unlock the full potential of their equity. Ultimately, stating that developing prop-tech platforms in the service of communities can augment their opportunities to progress and contribute to the creation of healthier, more comfortable, and just living conditions.

Silvia Danielak

Dissertation Advisors: Delia Wendel, Gabriella Carolini, John Gledhill

The Infrastructure of Peace: Socio-spatial Planning in UN Peace Operations

My dissertation examines infrastructure building, and the ‘planning for peace’ embedded therein, in the context of United Nations (UN) peace operations. The installation of solar panels, the repair of roads, and the construction of bridges constitutes an important vehicle for conflict transformation and imaginary for the future of a conflict-affected society. Peace operations’ infrastructure projects have a significant, long-term impact on the built environment and ecology in the places of intervention – a logic that is scarcely articulated as part of peace efforts and remains disjoint from the sustainability discourse to which peacebuilding has turned.

My research constitutes a multi-disciplinary inquiry, connecting urban studies and peace studies through an approach informed by historical sociology. I offer an urban planning perspective on peace operations, and specifically its infrastructure building. Through three case studies, this dissertation explores the ‘infrastructural imaginaries of peace’ – infrastructure as promise, risk, and legacy – pursued through engineering and planning expertise and practice in the UN missions in Cyprus in the 1960s, in Haiti after the mid-2000s, and in Mali after 2013.

The dissertation’s central argument is that peacekeeping operations conduct a significant socio-spatial (re-) organization in pursuit of peace through infrastructure building. The dissertation’s historical perspective on peacekeeping’s involvement in public works highlights that – contrary to the recent uptick in attention to peacekeepers’ ecological footprint and ‘sustainable’ peace efforts – socio-spatial, urban and environmental aspects have always featured in peace operations, albeit through different paradigms. Furthermore, the recent increased attention on ‘greening’ peacekeeping and ‘positive legacy’ after missions’ closure reveals an uneasy positioning of peace operations’ infrastructure building between the pursuit of positive and negative peace objectives. These objectives are not easily reconcilable and challenge us to rethink the spatial and temporal dimension of peace efforts, and the equity planning that might need to gain more traction in peace operations’ infrastructure projects.

Asmaa Elgamal Dissertation Advisor: Delia Wendel