Street Ecologies
In Abidjan, the largest city in Côte d’Ivoire, rapid urbanization raises challenges of preserving ecological, cultural, and social systems. Once disparate villages are subsumed into the urban fabric, often at the sacrifice of specific cultures and traditions. Simultaneously, rich ecologies that preserve biodiversity, produce food, filter air, and absorb water are under threat of destruction. To prevent further damage to both the social infrastructure and natural environment, a new model for urban growth must be developed.
This project proposes a framework for resilient urbanization in Ebrah, a village at the periphery of Abidjan currently contending with the city’s expansion and bound by winding lagoons. In analyzing a taxonomy of urban conditions across Abidjan, existing after a legacy of 20th century urban planning, a prominent feature is the auto-centric infrastructure and high stratification between programs of nature, dwelling, and circulation. In response to these conditions, this project began with finding a way to synthesize ecological, social, and circulation systems, and begin to destratify and dissolve the boundaries between. By focusing on the street as a space for play, lingering, dwelling, and exchange,
this framework establishes modes of development at multiple scales; from the
regional to the detail. By creating public spaces of negotiation between humans and environments, this proposal challenges traditional notions of development.
This project proposes a framework for resilient urbanization in Ebrah, a village at the periphery of Abidjan currently contending with the city’s expansion and bound by winding lagoons. In analyzing a taxonomy of urban conditions across Abidjan, existing after a legacy of 20th century urban planning, a prominent feature is the auto-centric infrastructure and high stratification between programs of nature, dwelling, and circulation. In response to these conditions, this project began with finding a way to synthesize ecological, social, and circulation systems, and begin to destratify and dissolve the boundaries between. By focusing on the street as a space for play, lingering, dwelling, and exchange, this framework establishes modes of development at multiple scales; from the
regional to the detail. By creating public spaces of negotiation between humans and environments, this proposal challenges traditional notions of development.