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2020/01/29 · Africa, Berlin, Indonesia, Introspection, Mozambique

TSPA Newsletter: 20 out of 20

Greetings from TSPA!

We are very happy to start the end of the decade busy with very exciting projects and a growing team. We started this year feeling 20/20.

Whether in Germany or overseas TSPA explored all of its capacities building climate resiliency, thinking of sustainable solutions, designing the neighbourhoods of the future and planning for all. We are looking forward to continue doing so in 2020.

Endeavours around the world

While this year we developed projects in Germany, our international work is still ongoing and at full steam in Mozambique, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Decentralisation in the making

After Mozambique undertook a massive decentralisation process from its capital city in Maputo, TSPA teamed up to provide local governments of 5 different cities in the production of long term development strategies for the local municipalities, providing them with a sustainable framework for the future.

Some of the biggest learning outcomes of this project were the capabilities to collect data in a new context exploring analysis by drone, heat-sensing technologies, and other new techniques for mapping and analysing informal settlements all-together while developing a vision together with municipality authorities and local citizens through consensus.

Redefining sustainability patterns

Indonesia, with its many coastal communities, undeveloped water infrastructure, and high urban climates strives in the ecological and social sustainable development.

This 2019 TSPA continued to be part of the team which developed a feasibility study and established a national framework for sustainable development patterns Indonesia Ecodistrict Programme at the neighbourhood level with ecodistricts pilot projects in the cities of Yogyakarta, Semarang and Wonosobo. This year the project held three on site workshops that helped our team to define what an Ecodistict is and how can it be shared and communicated under a clear narrative. This project had one goal in mind: embracing local contexts, cultures and communities in the making of guidelines for sustainable urban development.

Building Climate Resiliency

TSPA partnered up with UN-Habitat, the Republic of the Philippines Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, in a project founded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) part of The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, to contribute in the Philippines with the project “Building Climate Resiliency through Urban Plans and Designs” in which we made recommendations climate change adaptation through the promotion of climate-responsive sustainable urban development plans and designs in the cities of: Legazpi, Angeles, Tagum, Cagayan de Oro and Ormoc.

Local endeavours

As a great balance with TSPA’s international portfolio, this past year we worked in local projects with three German cities including our home, Berlin. These projects are either kicking off or already in full swing.

A neighbourhood of the 22nd century

We are happy to share that this autumn we were selected to be part of the teams who will develop test designs for the new city district of Blankenburger Süden, an area in the north east of our hometown, Berlin. Through a cooperative workshop process we have been able to build a collaborative master plan in which we will rethink how to develop the largest redevelopments in the region and take into consideration the interests of governmental institutions, stakeholders and inhabitants in the transformation of this green land into a neighbourhood of the 22nd century. One that is inclusive, sustainable, lively and connected.

Toilets for all

Given the lack of information on the current situation of public toilets and the increasing demand for additional facilities, the City of Düsseldorf asked TSPA to develop a city-wide strategy for the supply of public toilets. The goals are to identify possible locations for new public toilets as well as to come up with general toilet standards based on the principles of sustainability, accessibility and multifunctionality for all groups of users.
This ongoing project has given us insight into the real impact of public toilets on the city and its residents, and has taught us a range of new skills and methods for dealing with a large amount of unstructured data from various stakeholders.

Visualising Chemnitz 2040

As part of the City of Chemnitz’s aim to plan for the future, we teamed up with Zebralog to support the City in the development of a city-wide strategy. TSPA contributes its knowledge of strategic urban planning and spatial mapping and visualisation to a participatory process which involves both the city administration and the public as well as key stakeholders. Through a series of workshops and interactions we help define the city’s overarching goals and vision for the year 2040 and prototype them in areas in which they should take immediate effect.

Who (k)new

This year we welcome seven new international team members Alessandra Sammartino (IT), Alexandra Katasonova -not pictured- (RU), Christina Krampokouki (GR), Jan Cyganski (GER), Janin Walter (GER), Natalia Perez-Bobadilla (MEX) and Sophie Leemans (BE).

TSPA is excited for the projects and knowledge 2020 will bring, thank you for following our work.

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2017/12/12 · Africa, Cities Alliance, Partnership, Project, Publication, UN-Habitat

Nampula City Development Strategy Framework

Nampula is Mozambique’s second largest urban centre and considered the ‘capital’ of northern region. It is also one of the economically most dynamic cities of the country due to its location in the centre of Nampula Province – the most populous and prosperous of Mozambique – in the heartland of highly productive agricultural areas, at the cross roads between the East-West Nacala Development Corridor linking land-locked Malawi and Zambia to the port of Nacala, and the North-South corridor linking Tanzania with the rest of Mozambique. Due to these facts Nampula has been growing rapidly from 53,970 inhabitants in 1970, to 158,099 in 1980 and 306,074 in 1997; it is now estimated that the population of the is around 600,000 inhabitants, showing an annual growth of over 5%, which puts a tremendous pressure on urban land, infrastructure and municipal services. At the same time the surrounding District of Nampula is the fastest growing in Nampula Province. This explosive urban growth has been and continues to be mainly unplanned, so that more than 80% of the population live in high density squatter settlements with appalling housing, environmental and living conditions and generally deprived of the most basic infrastructure and services, and is potentially preventing successful investment projects if no proper territorial planning strategy is thought through.

Since 2008 the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) has been supporting the municipality and district of Nampula, together the Faculty of Architecture and Physical Planning (FAPF) at the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) and with the financial support of Cities Alliance, in preparing a city-wide slum upgrading plan (CWSUP) and a city development strategy (CDS) which covers the surrounding Nampula District to cater for the urban growth in the medium to long term, hence preventing the formation of new slums in the peri-urban areas and providing more favourable conditions for investment.

On November 12th, Thomas Stellmach of TSPA will lead a workshop with stakeholders from communities, the private sector and the local government of Nampula to validate the priority projects of the City Development Strategy Framework. The report is set to be released in early 2017.

2017/01/11 · Africa, Berlin, Conference, Official Mission, UN-Habitat, Workshop, giz

MetroHUB workshop for Kampala & Entebbe in Berlin

In partnership with the government of Uganda, giz, UN-Habitat, and Pedro Ortiz, Thomas of TSPA will facilitate a workshop in Berlin to promote a compact, socially inclusive, integrated and connected system of cities in the Greater Kampala metropolitan region.

The MetroHUB workshop approach will combine capacity development in planning, governance and finance aspects and with “hands-on” team work on acupuncture projects. The main elements of the capacity development workshop in Berlin are a series of seminars and lectures, presentations on planning, governance and finance, exploration of and discussion on case studies and good practices, field visits, and the definition of acupuncture projects in Uganda.

Context (concept note):

Uganda is experiencing rapid urbanization which has serious implications in terms of demand for land, housing, water, health, education, jobs and urban services. While the country urbanization is still low at 15 % and young compared to her East African counterpart such as Kenya and Tanzania, the country has a high rate of urban growth estimated at 5.1% per annum. The country’s capital, Kampala remain the dominant city with a population of 1.5 million, but a clear growth of secondary towns remain evident with 50% of the urban population living in 22 designated municipalities and 174 town councils. It’s projected that the year 2035, 30% of the country’s population will be living in urban areas.

Over the past two decades, remarkable economic growth at an average rate 7 per cent in 1990s and early 2000s, coupled with political stability have led to increased urbanization and agglomeration of people and higher order economic activities. Within this context and unless urban areas are managed properly they will grow into large unplanned settlements. Currently, the country cities and urban areas are already experiencing urban planning and development challenges including congestion, development of slums and informal settlements, urban sprawl, environmental degradation, high levels of unemployment, urban poverty and crime, a clear indication that the urbanization process in the country needs to be better managed.

The urbanization challenges experienced in Uganda force the country to now proactively manage urbanization within its town councils, cities and in the secondary towns to ensure a better urban future for its residents. There is need to move fast as it is always easier to establish competitive cities by building solid foundations when the rate of urbanization is still relatively low. To do this, capacities of both central and urban local governments to manage the country’s urbanization process and partnerships to effectively manage urban growth need to be enhanced.

2016/12/02 · Africa, Conference, Europe, Lecture

4th German-African Infrastructure Forum

The oceans provide smooth transitions between continents and economies and are essential components of intercontinental trade and global networking. What are the challenges concerning international trade, infrastructure development, and rapid urban growth in Sub-Saharan Africa?

During the last years the Africa Association has established the Infrastructure Forum which became a great German-African platform for network targeted in industry-specific topics.

Thomas is invited to participate as a panelist to discuss the challenges of rapid urban growth in Africa’s market towns.

The Forum takes place on Monday, Dec 05 to Tuesday, Dec 06, in Hamburg. See further details and register at afrikaverein.de, and look at the full program.

2016/10/10 · Africa, Conference, Lecture

TSPA at ISU Talks #04: URBAN AFRICA

Thomas Stellmach will be present TSPA’s work in Sub-Saharan Africa of the one-day ISU conference about urban development and urban regeneration strategies within the African context. The ISU talk takes place on Thursday, November 17 at 2pm at TU Braunschweig.

See further details and register at sustainableurbanism.de.

The other panelists are:

Fabienne Hoelzel, Fabulous Urban/ETH Zurich
Michelle Provoost PhD, INTI International New Town Institute, Almere
Daan Roggeveen, MORE Architecture, Shanghai
Tjark Gall, TU Braunschweig/NGO Urban Framework
Hubert Nienhoff, gmp, Hamburg
Prof. Philipp Oswalt, University of Kassel

2016/09/23 · Africa, Conference, Lecture, Partnership

TSPA AT THE ISOCARP CONGRESS IN DURBAN

“Cities we Have vs. Cities we Need” was the theme of the 52^ndISOCARP congress, held in Durban, South Africa. TSPA was part of a keynote panel on the implementation of The New Urban Agenda. Benjamin Scheerbarth reflected on the ways private planning offices might be able to implement sustainable strategies in cities. As possible ways forward he offered (1) to understand a plan not as a final product but as a starting point for dialogue, (2) to design with inbuilt flexibility for future change, (3) to cultivate a dual approach of holistic understanding and acupunctural interventions and to (4) find new ways of organising both spatially and organisationally.

TSPA also presented its paper on UN-Habitat’s Rapid Planning Studio (download paper), a capacity-building workshop, which Thomas and UN-Habitat colleagues conceived as a response to rapid urban growth across the continent.

2016/07/06 · Africa, Conference, Lecture, Official Mission, UN-Habitat

Planning Africa 2016 in Joburg

The 7th Planning Africa Conference – “Planning Africa 2016 : Making Sense of the Future – Disruption and Reinvention” took place in Johannesburg, Gauteng Province on 3-6 July 2016, organised by the South African Planning Institute (SAPI). Thomas presented the paper “UN-Habitat’s Rapid Planning Studio: A Case Study of Integrated Planning for City Extensions in Africa” (download paper) together with Gianluca Crispi on a mission financed by UN-Habitat.

The Planning Africa 2016 conference focuses on the role of planning in shaping the future. It is a platform for (re)thinking, discussing and envisaging the outcomes planners desire for the future. The paper and presentation promote and discuss UN-Habitats three-pronged approach and integrated strategy for capacity building to foster sustainable urban development.

There is a general consensus among Among South African planners regarding objectives and principles of planning, yet a widespread frustration as the urban reality including recent developments is far from the consensus on good practice. The discrepancy between the professional discourse and the reality of the context is remarkable.

The paper elaborates the causes of the above-mentioned implementation gap and proposes a potential avenue to address the gap: the Rapid Planing Studio.

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