Design Program for Dessie Campus, Wollo University, Ethiopia

Sammanfattning: A geographical position and its social, cultural and political context as well as climate and specific physical characteristics define the scope for a landscape design project. This has become clearer for us in our master project where we have made a Design Program for the outdoor environment of Wollo University in Dessie, Ethiopia and analysed and reflected on the work and process. The aim for the project has been to design an attractive and functional outdoor environment for the Campus, based on the inventories and the needs and wishes of clients and users. But, the aim has also been for us as landscape architect students to gain a greater knowledge about landscape architecture and the design process by position ourselves outside our usual context. The method has been open and seeking where the site, literature studies, dialogues with people and our own experiences from the field study in Ethiopia has influenced the work. Wollo University is situated 400 kilometers north of Addis Ababa, in a mountainous landscape. It faces problems of heavy rainfall during the summer, soil erosion, a lack of essential facilities, and is still a construction site with empty spaces in-between buildings and infrastructure. Our Design Program for future development of the Campus is based on visions from the University, dialogues with site users and inventories of the site and brings up an overall proposal, where problems and opportunities are dealt with. The large empty spaces between the buildings are transformed to places in different scales for various situations and a new system of pathways. Vegetation is used to make today's large-scale of the Campus to a more human-scale. We emphasize the use of a various kinds of vegetation to increase biodiversity and to become a role model in the country. Also the Design Program gives solution of how to deal with storm water, where it is essential to lead away water with swales and confronting the steep slopes next to buildings by vegetated slopes and terraces. Areas identified to lead the way for future change were chosen to be dealt with more into detail and as inspiration for the rest of the site. Making a design project in Ethiopia has raised many questions and traces to follow and we have gained both general and specific knowledge when reflecting upon our work.