FEATURE ARTICLE
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In the post colonization era, the woman’s role of caretaking and providing food and water in the household did not change but her means to fulfill these responsibilities significantly changed. The lack of any additional farmlands to develop and the shrinking of grazing fields for the herds necessitated women to find alternate means of ‘providing’.
countries. Often, fundamental needs of daily life that can be taken for granted in first world countries comprise the daily struggles of life in third world nations. These needs may be classified as Practical Gender Needs and Strategic Gender Needs.
CONNECTING THE DOTS BETWEEN GENDER NEEDS AND SPATIAL PLANNING The manner in which spaces are used, both within a household and in communal or public settings, is heavily influenced by gender roles. Women due to their predominantly communal roles are dependent on spaces which can act as gathering spots. These are areas where they communicate, take on their production role and go about fulfilling their everyday needs. This dependency is critical to recognize in the case of Manyatta as it coincides with the constitution’s new ruling of women legally being allowed to own property in Kenya. Bringing together political and social leverage opens a window of design opportunity - to guide the spatial planning of the currently informal settlement.
ADVOCATING A FORM OF SPATIAL PLANNING - FORM BASED ZONING While the creation of a Gender Inclusionary Development Policy (GIDP) requires implementation and enforcement by the Government (essentially top down planning), the proposed spatial design of Manyatta is guided by a set of gender-centric form based zoning, which guides the design of spaces where women can work, sell, produce collaboratively, increase productivity, share and ease domestic responsibilities and promote a healthier environment
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CITY OBSERVER | June 2016
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for their families and the community at large. Open space is critical to the way Manyatta’s development is envisioned, and hence the proposed form of spatial planning works with existing courtyards and ‘left over’ spaces in order to achieve the appropriate variety and scale of social spaces. Social spaces are defined by cluster sizes and respond to the density of activity within them. The proposed building typology corresponds to the characteristics of the road it is in proximity to. The development of the ground space with respect to activities and facilities bears a two-fold purpose – the enhancement of economic productivity and integration with family activities.
For example, one combination of the form based zoning framework which uses a ‘double commercial’ [DC] + ‘residential production’ [RP] + ‘large courtyard’ [LC], provides the users with spaces to add-value to their raw products. The production spaces are complemented by support facilities such as storage spaces and easy access for distribution and sales. A proportion of the ground floor development also caters to support facilities such as day-care centres, learning spaces for children and play areas. The way in which women use their space can help to create better opportunities for women and thereby directly effect a higher quality of life for the family unit. This makes it essential to enable women and community-oriented spatial design, especially in concentrated population centres. A key premise of the proposed strategies is therefore to empower women who by nature have the capacity to empower those around them and subsequently the community and the city.