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Planning in process: AORTA as a new instrument for the upgrading of informal settlements in developing countries been successfully applied in different developing countries. Therefore, it is important to mediate such projects tending to support the self–sufficiency and a more agreeable environment. The centres shall be points of exchange of ideas and experiences, as well as meeting points where public events such as conferences, culture happenings or concerts can take place. - Medical Centres To guarantee sufficient medical provision, such as help in small emergencies or selling medicine, as well as giving information on medical topics, e.g. the very urgent AIDS problem, small medical centres can be added to the AORTA structure. - Community Kitchen In informal settlements cooking is mainly done with open fire. This endangers not only the health of the user and the safety of the whole closely tilled quarter, but also wastes valuable resources. As a part of the AORTA, small community-kitchen will be added, where people can organize cooking in groups, using the electricity delivered by the AORTA. In that way cooking is more effective and lowers the risk of a major fire. In further steps, the kitchen modules can be equipped with cookers, powered by regenerative energy. This energy could be gained from biogas, produced by the habitants themselves, or with the help of focused solar radiation. Information on both techniques will be given by the community centers. - Grey water system An additional third strand, beside electricity and fresh water, can be attached for the transport of grey water. Collected from purification plants and rain, grey water will be used to irrigate small urban agriculture fields and will serve as an emergency system to extinguish fires in dense quarters. 3 Intervention process 3.1 Groundwork principles of the AORTA Intervening in an existing urban formation is a delicate but challenging venture. Its complex structure always reacts unpredictably and fragile equilibrations can easily become unbalanced. The planning of ready-made settlements like the South African 'Matchbox House' projects has to be seen critically, as for often neither acceptance nor identification is achieved within the artificial urban quarters. Therefore the AORTA intervention process must be a strategy of small steps according to the needs and major problems of the people. An intervention that is characterized by its continuous proceeding, improving with every step, based on experience. The strategy of small steps and “grassroots technology” helps to ensure, that the basic decisions are kept within the community and its people. Instead of presenting ready-made recipes, solutions developed together, shall be qualified further on. 3.2 Involving the habitants The squatters` high level of talents and potentials, ranging from self-sufficiency, creativity, motivation to self-reliance and organisation-ingeniousness, has to be supported and brought in action. This means organizing the habitants in effective basic-networks and developing a group spirit, which is for the benefit of everyone. Social integration and responsibility has to be a must, guiding to identification with the group and its community. An important focus has to be set on caring together for the needs of the socially disadvantaged, like AIDS-orphans, children and older people. Workshop: Housing and Sustainable Urbanisation in Developing Countries Author: Moritz Groba, Jochen Hansen, Christian Krause, Christoph Ruckert 5
Planning in process: AORTA as a new instrument for the upgrading of informal settlements in developing countries 3.2.1 The basic networks First of all, the community spirit is to be encouraged to convince everyone that the future intervention is for the best of every single inhabitant. Then spokesmen are elected to start the planning phase. Depending on the size of the community their number should be large enough to prevent decisions that are based on specific personal interests, but small enough to keep up a high spirit of community and the possibility for an effective operation potential. Together with specialists for urban planning and technical engineers, they form a council to deliberate on further steps. 4 The AORTA toolbox 4.1 Communication problems during the planning process A great obstacle in communication between planners and habitants is the lacking capability of the habitants in reading and understanding technical plans. 3d Computer animations may be impressive for presentation, but create a fixed final state which is difficult to accommodate to the circumstances, as the handling of the software requires high specification and skills. For involving the public in the decisions, a new platform for communication and discussion has to be developed: The “AORTA toolbox”, a communication tool, easy to handle, applicable intuitively, that fills the gap and allows both parties to express themselves, putting their ideas across. It provides a collection of materials and icons to act as a construction kit in a selfmade demonstration model. 4.2 Getting started With today's internet technology, satellite and aerial photographs of nearly every point of the earth are easily available and at hand in an excellent quality. The satellite photo of the operational area is glued in a reasonable scale, e.g. 1:200, on a soft material, like a plate of cork or styrofoam. First of all the existing urban structure is rebuilt with semiabstract items. These items are as close as possible to the archetype to be understood by everyone, but abstract enough to act as a symbol. E.g. a single shack, in the model made out of folded beverage cans, underlines the coherency of the archetype to be pictured, but still can be read as a simple geometric volume. a.beverage can b.cut to open c.winding off d.cutting out e.folding f.pricked needle into the “shack” Fig. 3: Building a shack model Workshop: Housing and Sustainable Urbanisation in Developing Countries Author: Moritz Groba, Jochen Hansen, Christian Krause, Christoph Ruckert 6
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