Nets for Urban Capacity Building
Three key hypotheses are presented:
1. Hypothesis: In Ethiopia there is abundance of resources and potential. By establishing Networks this potential can be used efficiently for Urban Capacity Building.
Future town development and sustainability are determined by the quality and amount of the available ecological resources. For the efficient utilization of resources know-how is of prime importance. Resource efficiency can be measured in degrees of self-sufficiency.
Ecologically, Ethiopia offers prime resources for producing electrical energy. Small and medium enterprises have a promising future if electrical energy and technology are combined with a basic income from agriculture.
2. Hypothesis: Small towns are most suitable for the combined production of agriculture, electrical technology and service industries.
Small and medium sized towns also offer a future-oriented social organization. Cooperation and competition between all professions learned and practiced in the town produce the desired synergies.
The towns can be constructed in suitable sites more or less simultaneously. Existing rural settlements can be enlarged and turned into small towns. Planning procedures and construction for the new towns are based on the guidelines of Urban Capacity Building.
3. Hypothesis: The development towards sustainability in Ethiopia is based on the multitude and diversity of small towns that produce the urban network of its multiethnic society.
The guiding idea is to involve the young generation – presently more than half of the population – in building a new urban culture. It is based on technology and regional heritage. Electro Technology is postulated as the main driving force. The goals of the new urbanity are exchange, the creation of value chains, and sustainability.
* Franz Oswald and Peter Baccini: “NETZSTADT – Designing the Urban”, Birkhauser Publisher, Basel, Berlin, Boston, 2003;
“Netzstadt: Designing the Urban”, simplified Chinese translation edition copyright 2007 by China Electric Power Press, Beijing
Profile of Speaker
Franz Oswald (born 1938)
Architect, M. Arch. Urban Design. Professor of Architectural Design at ETH Zurich 1972-1993; Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at ETH Zurich 1993-2003. Director of Institute for Local, Regional, National Planning (ORL) at ETH Zurich. Guest Professor at ETH Lausanne; Cornell University, Ithaca NY/USA.; Cooper Union, NY/USA; Columbia University NY/USA; Syracuse University NY; Lady Davis Visiting Professor at Technion , Haifa/Israel; New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark NJ/USA. Consultant ECBP and Curricula Reform at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.
Since 1974 own office for Architecture and Urban Studies (AUS) in Bern CH. Projects, Building Constructions, Research & Development in Switzerland and abroad, especially on Urban Housing and Settlement. Various awards, e. g. Deutscher Betonpreis für Wohnen der Zukunft.
International expert, jury member of competitions in Architecture and Urbanism; member of academic and scientific commissions; former Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at ETH Zurich; former president of SCUPAD (Salzburg Congress of Urban Planning and Development).
Numerous publications on: Architecture, Teaching of Architectural Design, Theory of Urban Planning.