Academy Network Africa

The Academy Network Africa is a project and a format initiated by the Chair of Urban Design, run by Prof. Fabienne Hoelzel at the Stuttgart Academy of Art and Design. The Academy in Africa is committed to learn in and with Africa, focusing on research and research-by-design in and on urban Africa south of the Sahara.

The Academy Network Africa implements research projects by African and European academics as well as teaching formats inside and outside of the ABK Stuttgart. Past, current, and future activities of the Academy in Africa include:

– Spring School 'Decolonial and Feminist Approaches in Urban Design in the Context of Rapid uUbanization. Case Study: Nairobi', 2025 (detailed planning ongoing)
– DAAD Spring School 'Everyday Practices. Feminist and Decolonial Approaches to Urban Design. Learning from Lagos', May 2023 (Lagos, Nigeria)
– DAAD Fall School 'Learning in Africa. Urban design, planning, and governance beyond top-down and bottom-up', October 2020 (Lagos, Nigeria/ blended format due to Covid-19)
– DAAD Fall School 'African Urbanity', October 2019 (Addis Abeba and Zeway, Ethiopia)
– DAAD Spring School 'Urban Africa. Scenario Thinking', May 2019 (Bodman, Germany)

– Urban Design Studio 'De/Reconstructing Oworonshoki, Lagos', summer semester 2024
– Urban Design Studio 'Feminist and Decolonial Practices in Urban Design. Learning from Lagos', summer semester 2023
– Urban Design Studio 'Shaping the Future Together', winter semester 2022/23
– Urban Design Studio 'Inter-African Perspectives. In Search For A Third (African) Way', summer semester 2021
– Urban Design Studio 'Urban Systems: Otumara, Lagos', summer semester 2020
– Urban Design Studio 'Urbanizing Ethiopia. Zeway', summer semester 2019
– Urban Design Studio 'Urbanizing Ethiopia. Hawassa', summer semester 2018
– Urban Design Studio 'Lagos. A Future For Otodo Gbame', summer semester 2017

– Urban Theory Seminar 'Everyday Practices. Feminist and Postcolonial Thinking', summer semester 2023
– Urban Research Seminar 'African Mobility. Part Two', summer semester 2019
– Urban Research Studio 'African Mobility. Case Study: Ethiopia', summer semester 2018

– Research Project 'Methods and Methodologies in Higher Education in Urban Design in the Context of Rapid Urbanization', 2021/2022 (Yishak Teklegiorgis, Ute Vees)
– Research Project 'The strategic, the anthropological, and the politics: Tools and failures of actor-based (urban) design in low-income communities in Lagos, Nigeria', 2019 (Fabienne Hoelzel)
– Research Project 'Effective, affordable and community-based planning approaches in urban slum settlements in Lagos, Nigeria.' since 2017 (Fabienne Hoelzel)

– Longterm collaboration with the Kenyatta University Nairobi, School of Engineering & Architecture, Department of Spatial & Environmental Planning, including students and academic staff exchange
– Longterm collaboration with the University of Lagos, Department of Architecture, including students and academic staff exchange
– Longterm collaboration with the University of Addis Abeba, EiABC, ECL, including students and academic staff exchange

(photograph: Ebute Metta, Lagos, Nigeria – © Fabienne Hoelzel)