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About the lab
Walking in urban Africa is commonly portrayed in a negative light focusing on the dangers of pollution and traffic.
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The Lab is a platform that brings forward evidence about walking conditions experiences and practices in un-walkable cities.
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Through innovative methods and cross-disciplinary teams we seek to expand how pedestrians in African cities experience, practice and intervine.
Relevance: for SDGs, for health and wellbeing, for sustainable urban development
Our vision
To establish an interdisciplinary, multicultural, collaborative,
and inclusive platform for the
co-production of innovative knowledge, methods, and partnerships in and about
walking cities that are not walkable.
Objectives
To document, challenge and expand current understandings
in research and practice about walking in African cities from
a nuanced and localised examination of the nature, challenges, and opportunities
of everyday walking environments and practices for
a more equitable and sustainable urban development.
The lab
This lab was initiated as part of the Osaka University (Japan) – University College London (UCL) International Joint Research Project on a street-based approach to informal settlement improvement in African cities. The inItial funding for the lab was provided by the Osaka University Global Knowledge Partnership Grant (GKP) Type A with additional support from the Social Solutions Initiative (SSI) of Osaka University as well as from the Development Planning Unit UCL.
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​An interdisciplinary group from Osaka University and UCL set out to investigate how low - income urban citizens give meaning and sense to their walking environment, creating their own routes and facilities to improve their everyday walking experiences and practices. The first case study took place in Moyiba, one informal settlement in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Learning from this experience, the lab aims to extend this research to similar urban contexts across the African region.
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Approach
DATE
2019
SOURCE
Walking Cities Lab
DESCRIPTION
A scale from objective to subjective conditions of the urban built environment that affect walking was defined to explore the characteristics of the everyday walking environment in informal settlements (see figure). Framing the understanding of walking conditions within an objective to a subjective range of elements introduces flexibility to move along the spectrum, depending on the resources available and the aim.
