Ethiopian institute of Architecture, Building

construction and City Development)

Chair of Architecture and Design II
Integrate Design Project Studio I (ARCH 4091)

RE-THINKING URBAN
Doctoral Seminar II (GURPDEVELOPMENT
Thinking in future
1222)
perspectives
THROUGH SCENARIOS
1
CONTENT

• Introduction
• Scenario thinking
• Examples of scenarios used in
urban design and architecture?
• Course structure

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URBANIZATION

‘What will be remembered about

the twenty-first century, more
than anything else except
perhaps the effects of a changing
climate, is the great, and final,
shift of human population out
of rural, agricultural life and
into cities.’
Doug Saunders, 2011

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URBANIZATION IN ETHIOPIA

• Regardless of the rapid pace of urbanization (4.5%), Ethiopia is still one of the list urbanized
nation
• As of 2021, Only 22.3% of the population lives in urban Ethiopia, accompanied by slow
structural transformation

• Urban centers are struggling with urban poverty, unemployment, poor infrastructure, surge
of informal sector

• Pre-dominantly unplanned urban context urges continuous planning (Mezgebo, 2021)

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CONT.

• Five levels of planning is used in Ethiopian

Urban Planning system (MUDH, 2016)

• LDP is the lowest detailed urban development

plan (MUDH, 2016)

• Large scale Urban development projects which

was not part of the local development plan are
getting common in Adds

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CONT.

• LDP in Ethiopia are being used as vehicles for ‘urban renewal’ (Semeneh, 2015)

• The implementation commence demolishing existing structures and Eviction of the urban
poor, marginalization, social class division (Mezgebo, 2021)

• Urban centers in Ethiopia become social engineering laboratories eradicating existing

established social bonds (Planel & Bridonneau, 2017)

• Different methods and tools in urban design are evolving in response to the rapidly changing
urban reality.

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SCENARIO THINKING

• Scenario planning/ thinking was originally developed in the context of military strategy
(Kahn 1962)

• It was adapted in urban planning primarily in northern Europe, Netherlands and north
America in 1990’s

• Scenarios can serve as planning device, option generation, predictive devices,

communicative devices.

• Scenarios are a tool to think about the future

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SCENARIO THINKING

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SCENARIO THINKING

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SCENARIO THINKING

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‘A scenario results from
the attempt to describe
in more or less detail
some hypothetical
sequence of events’

Herman Kahn, Thinking about

the unthinkable 1962

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SCENARIO THINKING

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SCENARIO THINKING

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THE MAIN QUESTION IS:

• What if…?
• Scenario 1 is based on the idea…

• Scenario 2 assumes that in future …

• Scenario 3 projects…

• Scenario 4 describes a fture in which …

• Scenarios are based on trends, assumptions, ideas, hypotheses etc.

• Make clear what your scenario is based on.

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• EXAMPELS

• Architecture + Landscape Architecture Design Studio. TU Munich 2017

• Urbanizing zeway possible economic scenario, ABK, Stuttgart, 2019

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 ARCHITECTURE + LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO.
TU MUNICH 2017

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 ARCHITECTURE + LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO.
TU MUNICH 2017

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 ARCHITECTURE + LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO.
TU MUNICH 2017

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 ARCHITECTURE + LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO.
TU MUNICH 2017

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 ARCHITECTURE + LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO.
TU MUNICH 2017

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 ARCHITECTURE + LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO.
TU MUNICH 2017

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EXAMPLE 2

• Urbanizing zeway, African

urbanity studio, ABK, Stuttgart,
Germany, 2019

Example case_ of ‘Economy’

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LESSONS FOR SCENARIO MAKERS

• Both past and future are constructions

• The future has different realms, each one needs a specific type of image of the future

• Distinguish between imaginable, possible, desirable and achievable futures

• Not everything changes. Do not underestimate social inertia

• What we think of the future depends on what we think of today. Make your values
transparent

• Include uncertainty, and make your assumptions explicit

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 ‘If a scenario is to be credible, then it must in
the beginning, refer to a meaningful version of
the present and it must reasonably follow
possible behaviors of people in the process,
through it is important not to resort only to the
most credible conventional or to limit likely
situations and behaviors’

Herman Kahn, Thinking about the unthinkable, 1962

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The future is not set yet. We can lay the ground

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SCENARIO THINKING

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SCENARIO THINKING

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SCENARIO THINKING

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SCENARIO THINKING

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SCENARIO THINKING

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SCENARIO THINKING

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SCENARIO THINKING

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Course structure

Studio structure

Study areas

Time line

Presentation & Communication

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STUDIO STRUCTURE

• FOUR STUDIOS (Elham M., Habtamu N., Michael H., & Michael T.)
• Each studio will work on three Project sites in group of 6 students
• Project sites:
• The students will work in group of two in the Architecture phase

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STUDIO STRUCTURE

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STUDY AREAS

Mesalemia (Ehil berenda) Lideta Piassa

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TIME LINE

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READERS
• Sustainability Reader - Sustainability

• Kowloon walled City - Density

• The Pack-Donkey's Way and Man's Way - Modernism vs Classicism

• John Turner (Housing noun vs verb)- Housing

• Jeff Speck - Walkability - Mobility

• Hassan Fathy -New Gourna - Context

• Bill Hillier - Cities as movement economies - Space syntax

• Francis Tibbalds - Places’ matter most - Place Making

• Roger Trancik - What is lost space? - Morphology

• Jan Gehl - Three types of outdoor activities; Outdoor activities and quality of outdoor space - Social Dimension

• Jane Jacobs - The uses of sidewalks: safety

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 THE END
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