We’ve started with steem (EM)POWER! Introducing the first steemit series on architecture driving social change in South Africa!

Who are we?

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We are the Urban-Think Tank Chair of Architecture and Urban Design based at the ETH Zurich and are excited to be on the Steemit platform! Our chair takes a pluri-discplinary approach to architecture and urban design and engages in projects across the globe with a focus on design research, social impact, citizen agency and sustainability.

We embrace new forms of knowledge and technology through emerging spaces that encourage new social trends towards transparency. We believe in accessibility through decentralization and social engagement and look forward to learning more about steem and your ideas! We look at the world from multiple perspectives and expertise, hence our excitement in engaging with you!

We experiment. We investigate. We design. We research. We write. We film. We engage.

• GIF: U-TT

The U-TT Chair provides a unique platform of research and design experimentation from which to investigate global urban challenges through the dual lens of informality and urbanism. We are concerned with how people negotiate and organize themselves in space, and see this as a principle act of design. Design is movement, and movement is design and it is in informality that this phenomenon or natural act is ripe! However, in order to harvest this, collaborative effort is required to improve livelihoods and create dignified environments. We are concerned with making real life impact! We critically assess territories of marginalization and conflict in cities in order to construct unique ideas and frameworks, which can be manifested into new urban prototypes for improved and vibrant living conditions. Anyway, as you continue to read our posts, details on how we specifically do this will be described with plenty conversation to follow.

The EMPOWER Project

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• EMPOWER project, U-TT

As we are sure you’ve come to gather from our short introduction of ourselves, our approach to projects always have a social imperative. The aim of the project that will be on Steem promotes a transition toward democratic and socially responsible urban models. Ok what does that mean? Let us begin by telling you what the EMPOWER project is exactly.

• Participatory planning with the community. U-TT

EMPOWER is an integrated research and development project for the urban upgrade of a section of an informal settlement in a district called Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa. The project is a collaboration with NGO Ikhayalami Development Services, the local community leadership and the City of Cape Town municipality. There are many other actors involved in the project, but we will be telling you all about that in a post on collaborators coming soon.

• Khayelitsha, Cape Town. U-TT

When we talk about informal settlements, we are talking about a context that has insufficient services (little to no plumbing, electricity, infrastructure etc) and has been informally occupied by a community out of need. Particularly in South Africa, majority of the population live in informal settlements and have been for the past 24 years of democracy. These informal settlements are a result of many factors, particularly population growth, poor economic opportunity and inefficient governance leaving people homeless. In response, this population occupies to survive: socially and physically.

• Khayelitsha, Cape Town. U-TT

EMPOWER started in 2013 with the aim to offer a new model for informal settlement upgrading through the development, implementation and evaluation of four core aspects:

1. A two-story housing prototype
2. A participatory planning process
3. Integrated livelihoods engagement
4. Ecological Urban Systems

OVERALL: by creating good links between the community, leading professionals and the government, the project aims to develop a scheme that can respond to the pressing social, economic and ecological needs facing the majority of the South African population living in poor and undignified conditions.

The project is on-going, and aims to catalyze agency. EMPOWER is driven by a constant feedback loop: between building and reviewing; and between various experts and the community…an inclusive feedback loop for a project in continuum.

So why are we on Steemit?

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Essentially we are on steemit to allow everyone to be able to Empower. We are interested in your feedback, your skills, and perspectives, which integrates into the inclusive pluri-disciplinary approach we take for real life impact. EMPOWER on steem is a constant open call, to invite new ways of thinking. In addition, the money raised from your upvotes will go to the project. Your steem counts. Your click Empowers.

• Empower in progress. U-TT

Stay tuned for our next post on making the language of architecture accessible through our Empower Glossary. Coming soon!

Get to know about the project at:

http://u-tt.com/project/empower-shack/