Formulating a capability approach based model to sustain rural sub-Saharan African inhabitant’s self-reliance towards their built environment

  • Michiel Smits (Speaker)

    Activity: Talk or presentationTalk or presentation at a conference

    Description

    Where changing climate conditions and depleting resources are becoming more important, here the paradigm is shifting to understand which resources are necessary to generate future well-being. Unfortunately the formal built environment remains the most polluting global industry and seems difficult to change. Taken attempts often treat consequence and not the cause. Most technological improvements focus on improving characteristics of material, construction and processes. This line of thought perceives that technology has the ability to solve all contemporary environmental problems. In this presentation is argued that in the informal rural African built environment we can find examples of other attitudes towards the same goals. Goals providing sustainable solutions with circular process and based on local renewable materials. In one way rural communities are a multitude of communities of practices, with a collective intelligence towards their built environment. Not only provides this with a circular and sustainable model, but also with a self-reliant and resilient model for the built environment. Important is to articulate sustainable ‘local’ solutions, the inhabitant’s self-reliance is of vital importance. Therefore, the need for a model is stated to evaluate what affords the inhabitant’s self-reliance and how this model could be used as support for the 'expert' to evaluate the inhabitant’s capabilities towards their built environment. The model intends global application for both urban and rural informal architecture. The rural locality is used as a case to develop the model, as case to study complex environmental, social and economic relations.
    Period7 Apr 2016
    Event titleConference Sustainable Built Environment - Transition ZERO
    Event typeConference
    LocationUtrecht, NetherlandsShow on map