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Session Guide

60-Minute Education Session

SUN-A04: Origin-Connection-Practice: Community Landscape Research in Rural and Urban Angola

Sunday, October 29, 2023
9:00am – 10:00am CT
1.00 PDH, LA CES/HSW, AICP, FL, NY/HSW

A Brazilian architect, an Angolan urban planner, and an American landscape architect showcase examples of community design in Central Africa. Through photographs, sketches, and drone analysis, the research illustrates communally created landscapes in rural, indigenous villages and dense urban communities, and the team introduces respectful, sustainable modes of design intervention.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Learn a greater respect for the central role that landscape plays in daily human life, even in dense urban communities where open-space is scarce.
  • Explore several urban morphologies that have been documented in the context of so-called “informal settlements,” and learn about the community decision structures that shape the planning of these neighborhoods.
  • Examine landscape design concepts—spatial arrangements, forms, and details—originating in indigenous Africa, and observe how these traditions are still evident in modern Angolan cities and in Afro-diasporic American and Brazilian communities.
  • Examine the principles of the United Nations’ “New Urban Agenda,” and how this declaration can guide landscape architects in the creation of healthier, more sustainable, and more human-centered communities.