Researcher – Addis 2050

WHAT IS THE CHAIR OF ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION AT FCL SINGAPORE?

Felix Heisel — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 04:33:51 +0000

As urban populations grow so does the demand for materials and resources to support them. Where such resource demands were once satisfied by local and regional hinterlands, they are increasingly global in scale and reach. This phenomenon has generated materials flows that are trans-continental and planetary in scope, and has profound consequences for the sustainability, functioning, sense of ownership and identity of future cities. Seen from this perspective, the project for urban sustainability must be global in ambition, but cannot be a matter of applying a universal set of rules. Rather, sustainability requires a decentralised approach that both acknowledges the global dimension and is sensitive to the social, cultural, aesthetic, economic, and ecological capacities of particular places to thrive and endure.

The Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) under the auspices of the Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability (SEC) in Singapore tries to adapt such thinking into the area of urban development and construction in various scales. Sustainability is an open system that must be capable of being located. If we want to build sustainable cities, we have to understand them as well as being open and located.

The Chair of Architecture and Construction at FCL concentrates its research on alternative construction materials and their application in specific contextual settings, taking into account of availability of materials, human resource capacities, and skills. The ‘alternative’ aspect of this focus emerges from an exploration of innovative and entrepreneurial thinking. This approach will inform a laboratory to test new ideas and how to combine already existing materials and knowledges.

Being located in Singapore, the “hinterland” could be considered as the Southeast Asian region, including the “magic” triangle of some of the fastest developing territories in the world today with India, China and Indonesia. Within a radius of only 4000 kilometers, covering only 9.8% of the globe`s surface, one third of the world`s population can be found with 2.5 billion people (3.4 billion by 2025) and the steepest urbanization rate worldwide placing highest pressure on global environmental sustainability.Urbanized settlements in this area have average growth rates of up to 5%, which is comparable to the African continent, where the urban population doubles every 10 to 15 years. The prognostications for the “magic” triangle show a population increase of almost 1 billion people in the next 15 years. Along those numbers, an increased demand for basic resources like food, water, safety, and shelter will occur. The two decades to come will certainly be formative in the further long-term development of those territories. But will developing countries like most of the African nations continue to be depended on imported building materials? Statistics show, that in most developing countries, next to the import of energy, the import of building materials and machineries is responsible for the bulk of trade deficits. The aim must be to re-invent indigenous building methods, construction technologies, and material use and with it coming to an understanding of appropriateness and sustainable thinking.

WHAT IS FCL?

Felix Heisel — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 08:34:44 +0000

The Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) is a transdisciplinary research centre focused on urban sustainability in a global frame. It was established as a research laboratory by ETH Zurich and Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF)in 2010. It is run under the auspices of the Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability (SEC). Collaborating academic partners include the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

WHAT IS EiABC?

Felix Heisel — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 08:33:52 +0000

The Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development (EiABC) was officially inaugurated on March 6, 2010 as an autonomous operating teaching and research facility in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In 2005, a nation wide effort was started to introduce a unified Bachelor and Master system in Ethiopia and with it establishing international recognized curricula in the field of Architecture, Urban Planning and the Engineering disciplines. From that date on, the Department of Architecture at the ETH in Zürich, Switzerland played a very important role as a strategic partner in introducing new academic structures, pedagogical concepts as well as a capacity building program which continuously supported the exchange of faculty and students between the two institutions. In 2008/09, the strategic concept of the establishment of autonomous operating IoTs in Ethiopia was co-developed with the ETH Zürich and led to the installation of the founding Scientific Director of EiABC Dirk E. Hebel coming directly from the faculty of ETHZ. The cooperation continues in project partnerships and research activities, ranging from urban design research studios to prototypical construction proposals in full scale, always accompanied with academic and pedagogical training sessions. The ADDIS 2050 project can be seen as one of many collaborations in the field.

WHAT IS HBF?

Felix Heisel — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 08:32:43 +0000

Between 2006 and 2012 the Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBF) was represented in Addis Ababa. The country office supported networking among civil society organisations in Ethiopia in the areas of environmental policy and promotion of women. New media and the arts were used to complement traditional activities in public education such as radio programmes, printed publications and conferences. The Addis 2050 project which was sponsored by HBF and the Green Forum Ethiopia, can be seen in line of those activities. At the end of 2012, the Heinrich Böll Foundation decided to stop their activities in Ethiopia due to severe restrictions by new laws and regulations on the work of non-governmental organisations.

WHO TEAMED UP?

Felix Heisel — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 04:00:00 +0000

In the summer of 2012, the Green Forum Ethiopia under the guidance of Heinrich Böll Foundation asked FCL and EiABC if they could develop a vision for the city of Addis Ababa in the year 2050. Emphasis should be given on the question of sustainable development, green technology and possible scenarios of a livable urban environment. As a result, 5 faculty members and students of EiABC came to Singapore for a four week workshop in the offices of FCL and started a think tank which had as its first result a 4 hour presentation in the Green Forum Conference in October 2012 in Addis Ababa. Outlooks, speculations, tools and visualizations were produced which helped to start a discussion of the future of the Ethiopian capital.

EiABC/FCL Team: