PhD Candidate at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Fortunatus Bahendwa, is set to defend his thesis, entitled Form Through Residents’ Practices: The unconventional transformation processes in suburban areas in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on 7 May at 10.00.
‘The thesis explores and presents the residents’ informal urban practices that influence urban form. It explains their significance in contributing to contemporary urban discourse in the context of persistent informal urban growth. A suburban area in Dar es Salaam city is used as a case to demonstrate practices of urban residents in effecting change to the form amidst the existing professional city bodies and the local administration at the grassroots.
The thesis shows that in the process of confronting the challenges of shaping and servicing urban space informal actors devise to utilize various modalities including forging formal and informal mechanisms for handling urban spatial operations, joining in groups to mobilize resources and use of local administrative units such as Sub-Wards and Ten Cell Units to officiate actions.
Thus, it concludes by recognizing the ingenuity of informal actors in production of urban goods and services. It also identifies the underlying weakness of the informal process and hence emphasizes the need for shift of professional understanding that urban form production strategies can fairly be built on both conventional and unconventional wisdom.’
The adjudication committee:
– Professor Tom J.C. Anyamba, first opponent
– Professor David S. Sanderson, second opponent
– Professor Kelly Shannon, coordinator
7 May 2013, 10:00 – 15:30
Address: AHO, Maridalsveien 29
