“KIN-BOPETO” is a project for the city of Kinshasa (R.D.Congo) that comes from a reflection on the serious environmental emergency situation that the Congolese capital is facing following a massive phenomenon of urban sprawl. Since the country’s independence in 1960, the Kinois population has risen from 450 thousand inhabitants to more than 12 million nowadays. The lack of management of this phenomenon and the fragility of the territory that makes it a palimpsest have led to the two consequences that will be the object of this research: the inability to manage municipal waste and the birth of erosive phenomena in the heart of the urban fabric.
In the megalopolis of Kinshasa these two problems are strongly interconnected, especially in
"KIN-BOPETO" is therefore proposed as a set of suturing interventions for a fragmented landscape. The regeneration strategies are inspired by the informal tactics that the population implements daily, but inserting them into urban-scale reasoning. More consistent waste management, bio-engineering interventions for the structural consolidation of the land and reconnection of the urban fabric within the valley are the strategic lines that are developed - in a long-term vision - through the application of design tactics: creation of temporary controlled landfills, development of connections between ridge and valley floor and installation of community-social services.
The "waste-scape" kinois which today reflects the environmental crimes inflicted on Selembao, will soon be transformed into a recycled landscape, where the mega-gullies are transformed into "green scars": spaces no longer broken but united. Places of reappropriation of the territory by the local population.
The Board:
