From experimental buildings to »Emerging City Lab Addis Ababa«

As a joint research institution, the Emerging City Lab Addis Ababa will promote the idea of experimental buildings constructed over the past five years in connection with a cooperative research and training programme in the Ethiopian capital.

Prof. Dirk Donath, Professor for Computer Science in Architecture in the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, will coordinate the establishment of the Emerging City Lab Addis Ababa over the next three years. »Weimar and Addis Ababa have been cooperating for years in the field of architecture, building construction and urban planning. The results of the experimental work primarily had to do with optimising building typologies and building designs. In the future, the research laboratory will integrate urban, social, architectural, design, technical and infrastructure aspects. This creates a broad-based interdisciplinary foundation for cooperation with our partner university. At its core is joint research with integrated instruction in the master and doctoral programmes. In addition to that, there are exchanges for students, faculty and doctoral candidates, as well as excursions and industry cooperation programs.«

Three institutes and two faculties of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar are involved in the project, the Bauhaus Institute for Experimental Architecture (bauhaus.ifex, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism), the Bauhaus-Institute for Infrastructure Solutions (b.is Faculty of Engineering), and the Institute for European Urbanism (IfEU, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism).

Any queries should be directed to Nicole Baron, a research assistant for the Professorship of Computing in Architecture, by phone at +49 (0) 36 43/ 58 42 09 or by e-mail at nicole.baron[at]uni-weimar.de.

Background on the experimental buildings

From 2012 to 2015, the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research provided EUR 300,000 in funding for education and research in the framework of the »Welcome to Africa« project between the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction & City Development, Ethiopia (EiABC), and Juba University, Sudan.

The project developed and tested innovative and resource-efficient construction methods, which led to the creation of three pilot buildings for different use scenarios and construction projects in the rapidly growing Metropolis of Addis Ababa: the Sustainable Emerging City Unit (SECU), the Sustainable Incremental City Unit (SICU), and the Mobile Automated Contemporary Unit (MACU).

The experimental SICU building was awarded the third prize in Regional Holcim Award 2014 Africa Middle East competition.

For a glimpse into the creation of the SECU, SICU and MACU experimental buildings in Ethiopia, have a look at the film on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/132564525

You'll also find a photo gallery at: http://www.uni-weimar.de/de/architektur-und-urbanistik/aktuell/aktuell/titel/von-experimentalbauten-zum-emerging-city-lab-in-addis-abeba/