Article 1 - Sustainable Infrastructure - Lagos

• Global attention was drawn to the severe and pervasive effects of urban slums when the United Nations included it in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) a few years ago
• Urban slums


  Areas or neighbourhoods that suffer infrastructure deprivation
• Infrastructure


  The physical framework of facilities through which goods and services are delivered to neighbourhood dwellers by the government
• A fundamental issue in slum upgrading projects is the provision of adequate infrastructure
• In a developing nation like Nigeria, there is a need to examine urban slum upgrading in a wider conceptual and technical context that will be more sustainable than what currently exists in large cities like Lagos
• Nigerian architects and other professionals in the built-environment have been trying to grasp key concepts required to comprehend the phenomenon of slum upgrading and therefore be able to address it by sustainable design
• The wider conceptual and technical perspectives constitute the main problem addressed in this study
• Techniques employed


  • Review of the literature and review of interviews on slums and slum upgrading in some parts the globe
  • Observation technique and visits to nine large slum settlements in Lagos
• This paper discusses a wide range of urban slum characteristics and slum upgrading issues that are applicable to the study area
• The paper examines specific aspects where the architect can contribute substantially to infrastructural upgrading of the built-form and spaces in Lagos' slums
• Household members


  If there are fewer than three persons per habitable room
• Persons per room


  Not more than two
• Alternative standard


  Minimum floor area per person (e.g. 5 square metres)
• Security of tenure


  The right of all individuals and groups to effective protection by the state against arbitrary unlawful evictions
• Evidence of documentation for secure tenure status

  • Households with formal title deeds to both land and residence
  • Households with formal title deeds to either land or residence
  • Households with enforceable agreements or any document as proof of a tenure arrangement
  • De facto or perceived protection from forced evictions
• Slum settlement


  Services and infrastructure far below the adequate or minimum tolerable levels, housing conditions are substandard and deteriorated to the extent that it is unwholesome and a threat to the health, safety, morality and welfare of the inhabitants
• Health conditions in slums

  • Physical building level (sanitary installations, natural ventilation and illumination)
  • Neighbourhood level (water supply, sewage and garbage disposal)
• Health conditions are particularly poor in the nine slums selected for this study, evident from the absence of government-operated primary health care facilities
• Households living in housing that is overcrowded, poorly ventilated, lacking adequate sanitation and safe water are constantly susceptible to infection
• Untreated human excrement and household waste water find their ways into rivers, gullies, streams and ditches thereby constituting major public health hazards
• Leading causes of deaths among slum dwellers

  • Diarrhoea
  • Typhoid
  • Cholera
  • Malaria
  • Tuberculosis and other enteric and ophthalmic diseases
• UN–Habitat (2007) paints a grim picture of mortality rate for children less than five years of age in Nigeria and other developing countries of the world
• Studies conducted in Brazil, Egypt and Ethiopia put under five mortality rates at 34.4%, 61.6% and 180.0% respectively
• 80-90% of pregnant mothers in the slums of Kenya, Uganda, Mali and Rwanda do not receive any formal medical attention during child birth
• The current infrastructural upgrade is skewed in favour of road and drainage provisions, to the neglect of other social infrastructure
• The high concentration of people in the areas being upgraded has no library facilities, and the number of nursery/primary schools operated by the government is generally less than what is needed to support such neighbourhoods
• The nine slum settlements in Lagos selected for this study have long been associated with lack of employment opportunities, crime, social disorder and other environmental problems
• The lack of community centres in these nine settlements that are being upgraded may eventually lead to decay of such communities
• Health, education, recreation and other social infrastructure have a direct or indirect impact on the quality of life of urban slum residents
• Improvement in the fixed physical facilities that provide these services bears a direct relationship to architecture and should be seen as a central task of urban housing delivery in the study area
• Siting and site planning

  The actual location of the physical elements and the relative location of the physical elements such as orientation and distance from one another
• Imageability


  The quality in an environment or in a physical object which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in the residents and other users
• Valued spaces and urban meeting places

  Community facilities like museums, libraries, parks, neighbourhood centres, walkways and recreational areas that encourage and promote active living for all age groups
• Morphology


  The way the components of the built environment like buildings, gardens, parks and monuments are expressed to invoke meanings that have relevance to the cultures of the host community
• The proliferation of slums in Lagos and other bourgeoning cities all over Nigeria are indications of the inaction of past governments and their failure to fully harness the input of the architect and some other relevant professionals in the city growth process
• Environmental and sustainability concerns

  Achieving a balance between basic and social needs of the population and protection of the integrity of the environment, through principles of green architecture like healthful interior environment, energy efficiency, use of ecologically benign materials and built forms that relate to the site and climate
• Socio-cultural and heritage issues


  Preservation and identity, ensuring that the relationship with the past is not endangered or obliterated as a consequence of urban clearance, and adapting historic buildings to different uses while preserving their styles and forms
• Slum settlements in Lagos, Nigeria

  • Characterized by substandard services and infrastructure that are a threat to the health, safety, morality and welfare of the inhabitants
• Infrastructural upgrading in the nine large slum settlements selected for this study has been hailed as an attempt to improve the living standards of people who reside in these areas
• The bulk of the upgrading activity focuses mainly on roads and drainages