Paper short abstract:

This article questions African urban futures by analyzing the evolution of construction practices and architectural knowledge in West Africa. It explores alternative ways of building and consider African cities as places for exploring new ways of inhabiting the world

Paper long abstract:

This article questions African urban futures by analyzing the evolution of construction practices and architectural knowledge in West Africa. This reflection comes at a crucial time: the urgency of the climate crisis, the recognition of African (vernacular) architecture (e.g., Francis Kéré, Pritzker Prize winner, and Lesley Lokko, curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023), the global increase in the price of materials, the criticism of the concrete and cement industry, one of the most polluting in the world…

Drawing on ethnographic work carried out along the West African urban corridor, from Accra to Lagos, this article proposes to (i) explore the construction practices writing the biography of some west African buildings, from their foundations to their finishing by giving the point of view of those who build (ordinary self-builders, masons, property developers, architects); (ii) map the growing number of initiatives that seek to find alternatives to all-concrete buildings and offer solutions to both the demand for affordable housing and the use of renewable and local materials; (3) to consider African cities as places for new imaginaries and possibilities, inspired by cultural and artistic renewal (e.g, Afrofuturism), in which to invent new ways of inhabiting the world.

Paper short abstract:

Untill recently in speculative fiction, African cities were conspicuous by their absence. This paper will consider how new artistic productions (cinema, literature, visual arts), within the framework of Afro and Africanfuturisms, started to imagine African cities in the future, notably in Nigeria.

Paper long abstract:

In speculative fiction (SF), African cities are conspicuous by their absence. Urban futures have most often been thought of from North America. Nevertheless in recent years, new cultural productions by Afro-descendant and African novelists, filmmakers and artists propose to imagine African cities in the future, within the framework of artistic movements such as the Afrofrofuturism or the more recent Africanfuturism. In many SF productions, Nigeria occupies a prominent place, both as the country of origin of some of these thinkers of urban futures in Africa and as the setting par excellence for the African cities of the future.

Alongside narratives on cities in the future from other (fictional) African countries, we will first see how urban centers on the continent are still often imagined as being bogged down by their current problems (demographic explosion, growing inequalities, decay of infrastructures, criminality, environmental damage, etc.). But we will also look at more recent and optimistic projections such as Birnin Zana, capital of the kingdom of Wakanda in the movies "Black Panther", Mbanza, capital of the kingdom of Katiopa imagined by L. Miano , or Lagos or Ilé-Ifè described by N. Okorafor in the future or an alternative present.

Paper short abstract:

How social media are contributing to shaping the imaginaries and form of Dakar and participating in building the ordinary city of tomorrow? Floor plans and 3D images of houses available on the internet are contributing to defining aesthetics but also construction and architectural expertise.

Paper long abstract:

Big urban projects led by huge investors and developers are not the only ones shaping the future of cities in Africa. Dwellers are also shaping the city by initiating projects of their own private houses. Focusing on my ongoing fieldwork in Dakar (Senegal), my paper will attempt to investigate how the future of ordinary cities (J. Robinson) is notably negotiated on social media thanks to access to a vast amount of normalized floor plans and virtual images available on Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube, and so on. How these images, available with a few clicks, are vectors of futurity? To what extent are social media questioning the link between expertise, development, and the built environment (M. Di Nunzio) since these images also pose the question of the role of the architect in the city making? Private small-scale constructors and dwellers are using these models to be found on the internet to save time and offer cheaper solutions, compelling with the necessity to build fast with constrained budgets, but also answering the desire to be able to visually and mentally imagine the place one will one day inhabit. These online computer images, often created on software such as SketchUp and Archicad, are contributing to reinforcing a (worldly?) common aesthetic (A. Ghertner), impacting the quality of constructions and the type of materials used (concrete, glass). This reflection highlights how the near future of Dakar could look like, between redistribution of expertise, temporality, and urban imaginaries, representation, and norms.

Paper short abstract:

This case study of YabaCon Valley in Lagos treats the gentrified neighborhood as an aspirational space constructed and used by a new class of urban youth, leading to a larger socio-spatial entrepreneurial experiment that potentially shapes youth urbanism and city futures.

Paper long abstract:

In the recent decade, the emergence and growth of tech start-up companies turned Lagos into a vibrant tech urban system. More than a hundred start-ups that began in the area of Yaba have given rise to its nickname, “YabaCon Valley”, a name with a vision of Africa’s Silicon Valley. Although its narrow streets and aging infrastructure might not give an immediate impression of a high-tech hub, many observers attributed the rise of Yaba to the location associated with two major educational institutions in Lagos. Relatedly, the case study of YabaCon Valley treats this gentrified neighborhood as an aspirational space constructed and used by a new class of urban youth. The urban space in this sense is defined by the ways in which these university students and graduates aspire to an urban future. Specifically, by drawing on a start-up that worked on ride-hail mobile APP from 2019-20, this paper illustrates how Yaba serves not only as a business base but also as an aspirational space, leading to a larger socio-spatial entrepreneurial experiment based on Lagos. Moreover, a detailed examination of spatial practices of a company employee—a young male university student—and his narratives of life experience in Lagos further illuminate a discussion on the relationship between youth and urbanism. By complementing the Africanist literature on underemployed street youth and urban informality, this study suggests that the spatiality of youth livelihoods, particularly their aspirational space, should be taken into account when exploring the multiplicity of African youth urbanism and city futures.

Paper short abstract:

The proposed paper seeks to place depictions of sustainable urban futures in comparative dialogue. Such an effort is of interest to both identify the universality of such narrative imaginaries and to theorize the logics of urban governance and neoliberal experimentation these visions facilitate.

Paper long abstract:

Scholarship on urban planning and development in Africa has focused increased attention on the arrival of so-called smart, hi-tech, and / or sustainable cities across the continent (see, Watson 2014). Across Africa, these visions have emerged in response to the UN’s 2030 goals, as well as in anticipation of looming crises wrought by climate change, environmental precarity, and socio-economic inequality (among many others). Similar motivations drive the reimagining of Detroit following the bankruptcy years of a decade ago and its supposedly upward trajectory as America’s newest “comeback” city. Taking the aforementioned urban imaginaries as a point of departure, the proposed paper seeks to place these diverse depictions of urban futures in comparative dialogue. Such an effort is of interest in part to identify the universality of such narrative imaginaries across space and time, but also to theorize the logics of urban governance and neoliberal experimentation that these visions facilitate, legitimate, and normalize. To accomplish these tasks, the paper draws on literature from political and urban theory, utopian studies, popular culture, and urban planning, as well as fieldwork and archival research conducted in Detroit in 2018 and 2022.