Sustainable Construction Workshop

Dar es Salaam 16-20 January, 2023: The University of Dar es Salaam of Tanzania and the Technical University of Munich of Germany organised the Sustainable Construction (SusCon) workshop for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to discuss how to build resilient and sustainable cities by finding a compromise between ecological, social and economic needs. The workshop, held at the University of Dar es Salaam, was facilitated by Dr. Fatma Mohamed and Eng. Mareike Thiedeitz. Several experts made key note speeches including Dr. Nathalie Jean Baptiste, Dr. Nockululeko Radebe, Neema Kahabi, Leonie von Oepen and Esther Kamaara.     

The SusCon project is premised on the understanding that SSA cities are urbanizing rapidly. As such many buildings are using cement and concrete which contribute to carbon dioxide emissions. The project aims to contribute to the scientific research and education of engineers, architects and urban planners who are prospective decision-makers for sustainable construction in SSA cities.

Prior to the physical workshop, the students were organised into six groups. Each group selected a city of study from Sub-Saharan African where one of the participants had come from. After selecting their city of interest, each group analyzed the city’s development strategies on building materials, architectural style, social and energy aspects and public transportation to identify sustainability gaps and propose sustainable solutions applicable to each strategy. The output of the pre-workshop stage was a short presentation on city sustainability strategies which was later presented at the physical workshop.

Each day of the workshop started with a keynote lecture on a specific topic, followed by discussions on improving soft skills of participants to be able to transform educational knowledge into the everyday realities of the society.  Technical input into the case studies was done through peer discussions moderated by the keynote speaker of the day. The third day was dedicated to touring the city of Dar es Salaam to appreciate the sustainability issues in practice.

The main output of the workshop will be a book consolidating the six case studies. The book is expected before the first half of 2023.   For details: https://suscon-ssa.org/