Social Housing in Jinja
international ideas competition Experimental urban area in Africa promoted by Fondazione Banco di Sicilia with the organizational support of The European House – Ambrosetti spa
City of Jinja, Uganda: a two thousand people neighborhood_ The main targets are the safety and the sustainability, the latter consisting of:
• a social responsibility, that is the contribution of the built environment to the strengthening of the social values and to the reduction of the class gap;
• an economic responsibility, that are the longterm effects on the development, especially through a cut on the building, maintenance and transformation costs and the optimization of the local resources and human potential;
• an environmental responsibility, that is the reduction of the impact of the buildings (in their construction, life energy use and demolition) and people’s lifestyle (like transportation and shared services).
Those targets can be achieved through the analysis and the elaboration of some of the informal dynamics which are typical of a slum. In fact, such a spontaneous settlements mostly comprise a mix of living and productive spaces generating a dense and heterogeneous environment containg informations about the needs, the expectations, the priority and the investment power of its inhabitants.
The housing unit typology (both for the technique and for its step-construction on the needs and possibilities of the inhabitant) knocks down the costs, thus permits to open new markets for the building contractors. The growing process of the house can be conducted in a second time by the owner with his own work or with the support of little local enterprises.
City of Jinja – Uganda
in collaboration with: arch. Dalia Omar Sidik and arch. Matteo Tofani
cultural anthropology consulting: Dr. Anna Nansove