1. CAPTURING
WHAT’S THERE
:Enabling Through Open Infrastructure
WHAT DIPLOMA PROJECT, BERGEN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, FEB. - AUG. 2011
STUDENTS SILJE KLEPSVIK / s.klepsvik@gmail.com / +47 936 76 783
STINE BJAR / stinebjar@gmail.com / +47 950 36 240
TUTORS DEANE SIMPSON / SIXTEN RAHLFF / VIBEKE JENSEN
WHERE LUANDA, ANGOLA

2. Luanda (Angola), a city of 6 million informal dwellers, faces great
challenges related to it’s rapid growth. Our project proposes an
alternative to the existing One Million Housing Plan by provid-
ing infrastructure instead of housing. We see the vast number
of people as a great resource and key to achieve a sustainable
development. The project aim to acknowledge and empower
both the human and physical assets already there, by exploring
the performative potential of infrastructure as an active urban
ecology providing accessibility and spatial qualities.

3. PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Angola has undergone 500 years of Portuguese colonial power, followed by a 20-year Also apparent was the high degree of productivity and initiatives within the informal sec-
devastating civil war. The war forced millions to migrate to the larger cities which were tor and settlements, the extraordinary vibrant and pulsating Angolan urban life, and the
considered safe, leading to a tremendously rapid urban growth, particularly in the capital powerful human networking and social collectiveness. Not to mention a highly efficient
Luanda. Due to the loss of agricultural land and the urban advantage, the urban growth water-usage and a resource awareness that we in the West have a lesson to draw upon.
has continued to escalate in post-war Angola.
INFRASTRUCTURE
In only the last two decades, Luanda has grown from 800 000 to 8 million inhabitants. We see the role of infrastructure as crucial in order to create a foundation for demo-
This has caused the capacity of the city’s infrastructure and urban logic to break down. cratic access to urban advantages and basic needs for the city’s recidents. Infrastructure
As Africa’s top-oil producer, the country has experienced an economic boom, bringing can also act as a spatial organizer, framing the urban Angolan life.
Luanda to the top of the list of the world’s most expensive cities to live in. Concurrently,
80% of Luanda’s inhabitants live in musseques (informal settlements and urban slums), Infrastructure can be understood as an urban ecology, embodying the natural and social
materializing in a rapidly expanding low-rise carpet surrounding the city core. It is evident cycles of the city.
that the oil revenues do not reach the vast majority of the urban poor, and the urban
divide is being further intensified. RAILWAY
The recently reopened railway going from the city centre of Luanda towards the interior
The rapid pace of the urbanization of Luanda is a weighing challenge for the city, and the of the country, will act as a generator for a natural densification along the line. This is the
urban planning of the coming decade will be a crucial factor in determining the future of starting point for our project, where we see the railway as the base for additional infra-
Luanda. The Government has recently launched a One million housing plan, addressing structural interventions aiming to facilitate the existing informal settlements and future
the overcrowding and need for basic accommodation. The plan’s aim is to build one mil- densification.
lion new homes by the end of 2012 for the urban poor.
CROSS-SECTION
To execute the plan the government is mainly contracting Chinese and other foreign With the railway stations, which are naturally a meeting-point and hub, as the starting
construction companies instead of utilizing local labor. The housing projects are located gates for further infrastructural development strategies, we work with a cross-section
far outside the urban core. creating an augmented poverty trap as the spatial distance to growing out of this central point. The linear development can be seen as a first step in an
urban facilities increases. In addition, urban informal settlements situated on valuable land evolving and larger system. We are looking at how this cross-section can be played out in
in the city centre have been relocated by force, which easily leads to agony and political one of the stations, in an area called Viana.
unrest.
CASE STUDY: VIANA
Struggling to meet the escalating implications of a war-torn country experiencing rapid Viana Station is located in the urban perpheri of Luanda. Lately it has experienced a rapid
urban growth, the Government should undoubtedly be accredited for its aim at poverty growth in population as housing prices are a lot cheaper in the periphery than in the ex-
reduction and at rebuilding the country. The hasty solutions built on foreign ideals can pensive city centre, and as the reopening of the railway has made the city and its facilities
however pose even larger challenges in the near future. The danger of building up large more accessible. Economically, the railway is now by far the cheapest public transport in
uniform neighborhoods consisting primarily of social housing and mainly designed as re- Luanda, and physically, the travel goes about three times faster by train than by car due
cidential hubs, segregated and isolated from the rest of the urban society, can foster social to the major traffic congestions in Luanda.
discontent and ghetto cities.
BRIDGING
TURNING PROBLEM INTO RESOURCE Viana is physically divided in two by the railway and the highway. The two sides of Viana
The rapid growth of Luanda imply major problems, but also create outstanding oppor- are also divided in their character, with one formal side built originally by the Portuguese
tunities. By understanding that problems are also opportunities, hidden resources can colonisers, and one informal side with poor access to water, sanitation and electricity. The
become visible. By capturing and acknowledging the potential that lies within existing bridging of this divide is crucial for obtaining an inclusive and diverse urban environment.
structures, as well as within the vast human resource, a city can become less dependent Our project works with this cross-section, bridging the spatial and social division, and
on large-scale, top-down, and costly development, and can encourage local initiative and facilitating accessibility and inter-active civic spaces.
breed productivity.
THE VOICE OF THE ARCHITECT
Reacting to the one million housing plan, we argue that infrastructure should be provided In the new urban age that we are in, we need to reinterrogate our perception about
instead of housing. what sustainability is, and question our established ideals. As architects we should take a
stronger part in the discussion around the larger questions about the performance of the
Our argumentation is accentuated by the report from Development Workshop, a non- city, and dare to take on a more holistic thinking.
governmental organization working with bottom-up strategies and extensive research in
Luandas’ musseques, which notes that: The African continent will experience the strongest urban growth among all regions of
the world until 2050 (UNHABITAT). Luanda is predicted to be among the four most
“Poor urban residents identified water supply and better sanitation facilities as problems rapidly growing cities on the continent, and the development taking place at this present
for which they require assistance (...). Housing and constructions, however, were not iden- in Luanda should be of extreme interest for both architects and planners.
tified by the poor urban resident as problems for which they needed assistance.”
With our project Capturing What‘s There we approach a development of a new breed
FIRST HAND IMPRESSIONS of urbanity, rooted in physical and social qualities already there. We see potentials of a
Spending one month in Luanda, we experienced the city’s infrastructural challenges first- more sustainable coexistence based on resource awareness and participation. The proj-
hand. The missing capacities for water, power and food supply were evident, so was the ect is a contribution in the debate on what we see as one of the greatest challenges in
lack of sanitation and waste management, the loss of agricultural land, and the chaotic our time –sustainable urban living.
traffic situations.