Last Wednesday marked the end of the lecture series “Thinking Outside the Box”, organized by our partner university TU Darmstadt, at the German Architecture Museum DAM that addressed how citizens, governments, urban planners can address the effects of rapid urbanization, conflict, disaster and climate change.
The participants, all of which are collaborators of our master program, included Alan Mabin from Wits University of South Africa who talked about the importance of factoring in maintenance and renewable in affordable housing plans; Dan Lewis of UN-Habitat’s Urban Risk Reduction Unit, who spoke of the efforts of integrating disaster risk management and urban development, Marie Aquilino from the Ecole Spéciale de l’Architecture, who highlighted challenges of urban mobility in disaster-struck places like Canaan, the youngest suburb of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince which became home to more than 40,000 families after the devastating 2010 earthquake; and finally, our codirector Carmen Mendoza Arroyo, who pointed out how spontaneous civic sites – usually open spaces or streets – can serve as examples of successful and inclusive socio-spatial interventions in Latin America’s informal settlements.
Get the full recap here.