Co-designing with scarcity in self- organised urban environments: a case of Shekilango commercial street in Sinza, Dar es Salaam - Tanzania

Abstract

This article reflects on how co-design processes in self-organised planned neighbourhoods can benefit from taking more consciously into account different views on defining and designing with scarcity. In a four year PhD study on self-organised design processes in spatial planning of commercial streets, it was observed that scarcity is often defined as a condition defined by an insufficiency of resources. This limited view leads to unidirectional urban planning processes, insufficiently responding to very diverse experiences of scarcity in African cities. The PhD study developed a design anthropological approach by engaging in daily co-working interactions with plot owners and tenants to enable a deeper understanding of their everyday urban realities and thus what is scarce. Differently from some reported co-design trajectories with organisations and authorities in western contexts, residents often do not have the means or time to engage in intensive participatory design trajectories. Therefore, we see a need for more attention for co-designing methods and tools that tap into the social and physical assets and related experiences of scarcity already present in daily life. Such methods and tools can be flexibly employed by the vast actors in their self-organised planning processes in urban Africa where scarcity is a major concern.