Human Settlements Review - Parliamentary Monitoring Group

Human Settlements Review, Volume 1, Number 1, 2010
Promoting Alternative Technologies:
Experiences Of The Habitat Research &
Development Centre (HRDC)
Martin Andreas Wienecke
Habitat Research & Development Centre Namibia
1. Introduction
The growth of human settlements in Africa has
been a characteristic in the last century. Africa
is the continent with the highest urban growth
rate. This has serious implications for the urban
environment, the social circumstances and the
ecology. Providing housing and infrastructure
are two priorities governments have to tackle.
However, merely constructing new houses and
the associated infrastructure is inadequate.
Housing is much more. The UNCHS (1997)
defined housing in a comprehensive context
as “physical shelter plus related services
and infrastructure, including the inputs (land,
finance, etc.) required to produce and maintain
it”. The United Nations (1978) provide a
definition of rural housing, which can also
be applied to urban housing, to illustrate the
multitude of components involved:
“... as the dwelling units plus utility services
such as roads, water supply, sewage disposal,
electricity and fuel. Furthermore, it includes
markets, health centers, social and cultural
areas for education, religion, recreation,
community participation and management.
Facilities for agricultural and agro-industrial
activities and services also form part of the
system”.
In urban areas the latter will include nonagricultural
industries, bureaucracies, and
higher educational institutions. If the challenges
of housing are to be addressed, a multitude of
factors have to be incorporated in the process,
as indicated in the definition above.
The reliance on conventional approaches
has not contributed to problem solving in the
case of housing. Many attempts have been
made to alleviate some of the constraints, e.g.
community based projects or involving small
contractors in the construction processes.
In most cases conventional materials and
construction methods formed the basis of the
activities. The affordability of many households
declines continuously, due to the constant
increases in prices for conventional materials
and services, and the slower growth rates in
incomes. This has lead to various attempts
to find a solution through mass production,
economies of scale, and subsidies, to lower
the costs. Other initiatives looked at nonconventional
approaches in order to overcome
constraints, among them were alternative
technologies. Some examples will illustrate
the design and work done by the Habitat
Research and Development Centre.
2. Alternative technologies
So-called modern construction materials are
regarded as more durable than traditional
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