Andrea Migotto

A Bigger Wall

The project proposes a new paradigmatic form of dwelling in order to challenge the contemporary urban development of Addis Ababa and to address the urgent necessities of the lower classes living in the slum areas of the city.

Inhabitable „frames“ are proposed as a prototypical urban form for dwelling, with the aim to bridge the scale between the metropolis and architecture, and challenge the current local praxis of housing production, based on a seemly unavoidable and irreversible process of land value exploitation.

At the urban level, the form of the frame tries to introduce, in the market-driven logics of development of  central Addis a strategic idea for urban transformation and social cohabitation towards the idea of inclusive city and a formal definitions of its parts.

The building formal logic is composed of a relentless repetition of structural walls.
Adapting to the uses and to the ethos of „Ethiopian living standards”, the building act a simple backbone, to provide the reasonable minimum for a dignitious and simple life of its inhabitants.