TU Delft Global Initiative

AZHIM IN MBALE

I have been doing research with the community in Namabasa, Mbale on the vulnerabilities of women in emergency flood situations. In the early warning system that I am designing, the first stages are about monitoring the rain situation and the sensitization of impending floods. By frequently disseminating information on how to act early before floods happen, it is hoped that women could save themselves before the disaster. The most preferred method of communication in this village is the use of megaphones, or locally called 'community radios'. By making use of this tool, information can quickly reach thousands of people in the village at the same time, and women do not have to leave their household chores to receive important information about disasters.

Mariana | SPD | Awareness and accessibility of the menstrual pads in Uganda

The third week in the field in Uganda is quite different from the first two. It’s not talking to relevant stakeholders anymore. It's time to put everything together and start moving into design solutions.

While doing the analysis of all the information collected during the last two weeks, really interesting insights start to pop out and the ideas start to come together.

With these insights the planning for a co-creation session with Makapads starts to formulate. The goal of the session is to come up with solutions according to their capabilities and interests. This would make the implementation more realistic.

When planning the session something to take into consideration is the level of creativity of the group. This might be a barrier, but it can also be turned into an opportunity. This is why this session will be more guided in order to have the desired outcome.

The session will consist of presenting insights and possible directions in order to give the company clarity and possible directions for them to choose, refine and define.

Let's explore and see how it goes!

Hi from Dhaka! We are a group of 9 architecture students travelling to Bangladesh. As part of the MSc 2 Global Housing Studio (Faculty of Architecture), we are having a bilateral collaboration with the Bengal Institute. We are working on resilient housing solutions in the context of an extremely dynamic ecosystem.
The trip is to understand and immerse in the Bangladeshi culture – and the challenging conditions of the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta. There, we do fieldwork in the form of site visits and collaborate with 10 Dhaka students. In our coming posts, we will keep you posted about further site visits and the collaborative design solutions.

1) The Delft students in front of the parlement building by architect / Louis Kahn.
2) First meeting with our partners of the Bengal Institute.
3) Bengal and Dutch students gathering for the parlement visit.
4) Typical street view in Dhaka.