MOBILISING THE PERIPHERY - #3 Focus Africa: Informality and Urban Pattern
Friday, 1 July and Saturday, 2 July 2016

The third symposium in the collaborative ANCB – Schindler Transit Management Group project on contemporary urban peripheries worldwide

Part 1: Introduction and Keynote

Africa is urbanising at the fastest rate worldwide. A combination of significant, survival-driven rural-to-urban migration, continued high population growth, and the reclassification of vast amounts of land as urban, are resulting in slum-like urban conditions on the edges and in the centre of cities; critically so in Sub-Saharan African cities where any coordinated provision of basic utilities and services cannot keep pace with population growth. Consequently, the condition of informality dominates.

This third symposium within the ANCB & Schindler collaborative research project on urban periphery focused on informality and its associated urban patterns, as manifest in the urban peripheries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Participants  present exemplary responses from urban practice and research, across the spectrum from policy to on the ground project. The moderated discussions focused on these as reflective of an alternative urban design and planning approach, respectful of the nature of informal realities, especially their expression of community and communality in urban form, on which urban patterns for the future city periphery in Sub-Saharan Africa can be based. Additionally, the transference of this approach to informal conditions elsewhere in the world was also discussed.

Friday, 1 July 2016

Exhibition Opening
The symposium commenced with the opening of a small exhibition of visual works on urban patterns in Africa generously provided by Bouwer Serfontein and Olalekan Jeyifous.

Welcome and Introduction
Eduard Kögel, Research Advisor and Programme Curator, ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, Berlin - 00:00:00 - 00:09:51

Keynote: Describing the Sub-Saharan African Periphery
Remy Sietchiping, UN Habitat, Nairobi - Mobilising the Periphery. Sub-Saharan Africa: Informality as Catalyst? - 00:10:44 - 00:34:51

Part 2: Keynotes 2 & 3

Keynotes: Describing the Sub-Saharan African Periphery
Astrid Ley, Technical University, Stuttgart - Africa’s Urban Transition - 00:01:15 - 00:25:38
Olalekan Jeyifous, Artist/Designer, New York - Speculative Futures for the African City: Immanence and Imminence - 00:28:04 - 00:58:04

Part 3 - Keynote Panel

Panel Discussion
Astrid Ley, Technical University, Stuttgart
Remy Sietchiping, UN Habitat, Nairobi
Olalekan Jeyifous, Artist/Designer, New York

Moderator
Eduard Kögel, Research Advisor and Programme Curator, ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, Berlin

Part 5: Panel Discussion 1

Q & A Session and Panel Discussion 1: 00:00:00 - 00:21:30

Aisha Walcott-Bryant, Manager of Cognitive Algorithms and Analytics Team and Technical Lead for the Mobility Team at IBM Research Africa, Nairobi
Bouwer Serfontein, Director, Holm Jordaan Group and Gary White & Associates, Stuttgart and South Africa
Jan van den Broeck, Anthropologist, University Leuven
Manuel Herz, Founder, Manuel Herz Architects, Basel

Moderator
Eduard Kögel, Research Advisor and Programme Curator, ANCB, Berlin

Part 7: Impulse Panel 2

Q & A Session and Panel Discussion 1: 00:00:00 - 00:21:30

The symposium continued with an Internal Workshop where Friday's and Saturday's speakers were joined by the following peers: Paola Alfaro d’Alençon, Senior Researcher Habitat Unit, Technische Universität, Berlin; Dirk Donath, Addis Ababa University; Hassan El Mouelhi, Senior Researcher Habitat Unit, Technische Universität, Berlin; Silvan Hagenbrock, Urbanism Graduate, Bauhaus University, Weimar; Daniel Kötter, Director and Video Artist, Berlin; Rachel Lee, Senior Researcher Habitat Unit, Technische Universität, Berlin; Max Schwitalla, Founder Studio MaxSchwitalla, Berlin; Gesa Schönberg, Research Analyst, German Advisory Council on Global Change, Berlin; Hendrik Tieben, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong