An urban planner assesses the damaging impact of flooding and erosion on a poor migrant community in Kumasi, Ghana

by Aldrin B. Plaza

The country of Ghana in West Africa is susceptible to different kinds of disasters including plague and disease outbreak and floods caused by excessive rains. In 2007, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent reported the death of twenty-two persons and the displacement of 200,000 more individuals most of whom are farmers due to torrential rains which lasted for three weeks in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The City of Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city located in the Ashanti Region, and its peri-urban areas are not spared from the devastating effects of these floods.

In Kumasi the growth of peri-urban communities depends very much on their proximity to the city center and also to their adjoining areas and the activities therein. The city is almost at the center of Ghana and is traversed by a number  of major road networks making it susceptible to migration. For the City of Kumasi, a peri-urban interface area is defined as places “with presence of bush/fallow agricultural land, but with competition for land from non-agricultural uses” and is determined as areas from 4 to 47 km from the center of Kumasi (Brook and Davilla, 2000). One of these peri-urban villages in Kumasi is the community of Ayigya, a suburb of Kumasi under the Ofirokorm sub-metro located about 5 km from the Kumasi City center. This study focused on the areas located in the Old Ayigya – Ayigya Zongo and Ayigya Ahimbono.

Ayigya started as an area occupied by about ten families in the 1950s. When migrants from the north of Ghana seeking a better life started to look for areas where they could build settlements, the then Chief of Ayigya allowed them to settle on the other side of their hill settlement. This place is what is now referred to as Ayigya Zongo which literally means “migrant’s village”. In Ghana, all lands are under the stewardship (and ownership) of the Chiefs and other such traditional rulers (in the case of the Ashanti Region where Kumasi is situated, all lands are owned by the Ashanti King). So all matters pertaining to land use and allocation would first have to get the approval of the Chief, and if given approval, a lease certificate of 99 years is given to the individual or entity (50 years if the individual or entity is a foreigner or foreign-owned).

Almost all of the settlers in Ayigya Zongo are Muslims while the original settlers in the Ayigya Ahimbono area follow a traditional religion where priests also play a role in the village’s traditional and political affairs along with the Chief. A shrine built by the original settlers located on the topmost portion of Ayigya still exists to this day. This shrine, as stated by the traditional priests, serves as the home of the souls of their ancestors. It is situated on a high area because they believe that their ancestors will continue to watch over them from the shrine. At present, Ayigya Ahimbono’s population has a large number of Christians due to the influx of renters in the area. Although the Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD) made plans in 1967 and 1978 to develop the suburb community of Ayigya, its development was dictated by the traditional rulers (the Chiefs) and the demand for low-cost rental housing for the employees and also students of the Kwameh Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Basic infrastructure services such as water supply and drainage are lacking and the buildings are made up of only a few multiple storey buildings, with most buildings being single-storey compound houses which are rented out to multiple tenants. These compound houses have an average occupancy of about 12 families.
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by Sara Yllner

“By studying a context in a country quite different to my own I gained a deeper understanding about what parts in the planning process are vital for a community to be successful and sustainable in the long run.”

This semester I finished my ninth semester as an architecture student at Lund University in Sweden. The reason I chose this course set in the Philippines was that I wanted to go somewhere completely different from Sweden and learn to look at architecture from a different point of view. I really didn’t know what to expect even though I’ve had the opportunity to travel quite a lot to India, China, and Syria but I never really understood the whole context and how one, as an architect, could contribute to change certain situations.

In Sweden, we tend to take everything for granted. There’s clean water, a sewage system, electricity, internet, television, and libraries. Everybody goes to school, and almost everyone has a roof over their head. It is easy to forget that all these things are not a given for everybody, or rather the majority of the worlds’ population. When I talked to people in the Philippines they couldn’t believe that a country could only have 9 million inhabitants, which is more like the population for a mid-size city in Asia. I, on the other hand, had a hard time grasping how a city with 16 million people was organized and how much the regions could differ.

TAO-Pilipinas organized our trip in Manila together with Lund University and our teachers Johnny and Rachelle Åstrand. During the four intense weeks we had study visits to informal settlements, high end gated communities and everything in between. We also got to meet people with all kinds of different occupations involved in the planning and housing sector in the city, such as the mayor of Quezon City, architects, planners, and many more. We also got the opportunity to interview people from all levels of society which was really interesting and educational.
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by Johanna Strauß

“We visited lots of different dwelling areas, from slum areas to resettlement areas as well as middle-income areas”

We are students from Lund University who took part in a design project called “Architecture in Extreme Enviroments.” Our studies were structured in three parts: a pre-study in Sweden, a field study for four weeks in the Philippines, and a design period back home in Sweden for another three months.

In the pre-study period, teachers provided us basic knowledge about the people, tradition, architecture, politics, and trends of the country. During the field studies in the Philippines locals provided further information and reflections in lectures which were very inspiring. We had the chance to interview local people from the government, organizations, and inhabitants of different areas. We were able to understand the Filipino way of life and the requirements related to architecture. At the same time we visited lots of different dwelling areas, from slum areas to resettlement areas as well as middle-income areas and high-income “resorts.”

For my design project, I was inspired by the micro-climate in informal settlements. Walking through these areas, I often felt better climated because of the small and narrow pathways as well as lots of shading devices even if it was just hanging clothes.
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