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Productive Public Space: Exploring Hybridities in Informal SettlementsVan Alen Institute announced a reception for New York Prize Fellows Chelina Odbert and Jennifer Toy.
Their project, "Productive Public Space: Exploring Hybridities in Informal Settlements," explores alternative models for poverty alleviation, quality of life improvement, and environmental remediation through the production of public space in slums.
Odbert and Toy, founding members of the Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), have spent over two years working with community members in the slum of Kibera, Nairobi, to design and implement the concept of productive public space - an open space, created in collaboration with its client community, that links physical improvements to self sustaining micro-enterprise activities.
Home to between 700,000 and 1,000,000 residents, Kibera is the largest informal settlement in Sub-Saharan Africa yet it occupies a space just two-thirds the size of New York City's Central Park.
KDI's efforts in Kibera include development of youth employment opportunities, trash collection, and flood prevention along the wide, debris covered banks of polluted rivers that cut through the settlement.
A reception will be held on Thursday, April 10, 2008 from 7:00-9:00pm, featuring visual materials about KDI's ongoing work in Kibera and a presentation by Odbert and Toy about the opportunities and challenges facing designers who work in informal settlements or low-income areas.
This program is free and open to the public.
more: www.vanalen.org/nyprize/ResidentF... (35)
design directory:
Van Alen Institute > Urban Design Organizations
6/4/2008 | Viewed 13,017 time(s)
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