Commissioned by: Addis Ababa City Administration (2022)
Context & Challenge
The Aware neighborhood lies just steps away from the Grand Palace, yet its urban presence has long been erased by surrounding political and commercial districts. Despite its adjacency to Addis Ababa’s founding landmarks and the city’s earliest mosque (Wale Muhammad, est. 1898), Aware remains trapped in a slum condition, underserved, underplanned, and underimagined.
This project began as part of a formal commission by the Addis Ababa City Administration to develop a Local Development Plan (LDP). The thematic mandate was to apply the principles of inclusive planning to revitalize a culturally significant yet spatially marginalized area.
Urban Diagnosis
We conducted a multi-dimensional spatial and policy analysis:
- Spatial Disconnection: Irregular, fragmented plots, steep slopes, and unstructured pedestrian networks made formal interventions difficult.
- Policy Conflict: Existing Masterplans categorized Aware as renewal-worthy but blocked them from high-impact investments due to proximity to heritage and flight routes.
- Economic & Social Marginalization: Residential use dominated 86% of the area. Manufacturing was informally embedded, and commercial presence was a mere 1%, a direct signal of economic exclusion.
- Infrastructure Gaps: 50% of streets were less than 10m wide. Drainage systems were poor, and many roads ended abruptly, reflecting a literal dead-end in connectivity.
Strategic Response
We positioned the plan to transform Aware into a multi-scalar model of inclusive redevelopment, focusing on:
- Spatial Inclusion: Rethought block sizes, introducing human-scaled, accessible public spaces and open green areas, features mostly absent in the current figure-ground map.
- Economic Activation: Repositioned garage and metal works as entry points for creative economies, formalizing them into mixed-use verticals without erasing livelihoods.
- Cultural Anchoring: Highlighted the historical mosque and nearby sites through design interventions that blur sacred, residential, and civic boundaries.
- Sustainable Land Use: Introduced density gradients, buffer zones, and eco-corridors along slope constraints and waterways.
Role & Contribution
As the lead urban designer in the team, I was responsible for:
- Urban morphology analysis & figure-ground mapping
- Heritage-sensitive design integration
- Street network rationalization proposals
- Public space framework modeling & phasing strategy
- Final deliverables, including all physical plans, maps, and graphics, were submitted to the city.
Thematic Frame: “Repair Without Removal”
Rather than a tabula rasa approach, this plan was guided by the ethos of urban repair. Every intervention respected existing rhythms of the neighborhood while elevating the forgotten potential of its location. This wasn’t about designing from scratch. It was about designing with memory.
Reflection (Final Design not included here)
The Aware LDP pushed us to ask: How can a city respect its historic pulse while making room for the future? In mapping constraints, we found opportunities in the slope, in the informal, and the overlooked.
This was not a theoretical design. It was a strategic act of urban reconciliation, grounded in inclusive planning and delivered to city leadership.
Brook Abebe
Urbanist. Strategist. Educator.
For inquiries or collaboration: [contact]
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