New PhD thesis: Urban transformation in Tanzania

Ezekiel Z.M. Moshi is an architect and a lecturer at Ardhi University in Dar es Salaam Tanzania.. He is also a PhD candidate at the AHO Institute of Urbanism and Landscape.

On November 4th 2009, he will hold a trial lecture and present his thesis Urban transformation: Changing building types in Kariakoo, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

The subject of the trial lecture is Morphological and Spatial Analysis of Urban Space; Limitations and challenge for Urban Development in Dar es Salaam, Kariakoo.

• The thesis can be bought in AHOs reception or downloaded here (pdf).
• Program of the PhD disputation

In his research, Moshi focuses on how and why the inherited colonial city centre of Dar es Salaam, the area of Kariakoo in particular, has transformed in the way it has in the post-colonial period. Emphasis in the thesis is on the transformation of the urban form through the development of a building particular to Kariakoo.

The thesis argues that Kariakoo is not a product of professional planning and design concepts; rather it is a product of individually driven and often uncoordinated incremental changes.

The study concludes that new approaches are needed to plan and coordinate the emerging individual efforts of change and such patterns as observed in Kariakoo. The study notes that earlier attempts to plan Kariakoo using conventional approaches have failed. The question is how to engender coordination among the different urban levels to enhance the emerging identity and character rather than chasing away the development opportunities which no doubt are contributing to national and regional development.