Architecture meets sanitation: Intervening in community-led sanitation improvements in an informal settlement of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract

This thesis explores the opportunities for intervening as an architect in the context of community-led sanitation improvements in an informal settlement of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The inquiry is done through a practical experiment consisting in the implementation of a private to semi-private ecological sanitation facility, called “A Pilot toilet”. This implementation is made of different phases, methods and processes that are observed, monitored and reported in this work. Further-more this performance is enhanced and supported by a contextual research on the issues and fac-tors linked with the lack of improved sanitation in informal settlements in cities of the global south, but also by a framework outlined by wicked problems’ theory and the role of the archi-tects/architecture in society.

Through this work, I am able to expose a way of doing architecture, through practice, that hope-fully responds to the growing need for more holistic and also more participative or inclusive ap-proaches to wicked problems such as the lack of sanitation in informal settlements.

The specific set of skills of architects or planners combined with the local knowledge and needs of communities can result in a change of mindset of society and influence local authorities to pursue not only alternative design and planning approaches but also more sustainable resolutions.