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Miss Olande Onitiju

Job: PhD student

Faculty: Arts, Design and Humanities

School/department: Leicester School of Architecture

Address: Â鶹ƵµÀ, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH

T: N/A

E: p13199486@my365.dmu.ac.uk

 

Personal profile

Olande Onitiju is a PhD researcher at the Leicester School of Architecture, Â鶹ƵµÀ, Leicester. She holds both a BA (Hons) and a Master qualification in Architecture ( RIBA I and II). Olande's research focuses on the subject of addressing the future of informality in African cities and contributes to transcending urban theory on informality, through African urbanism and water urbanism in the city of Lagos, with a case study in Lagos, Nigeria. She has presented papers at conferences in Finland and Scotland on issues in urban centres including the right to the city and water settlements as the future of urbanism.

Research group affiliations

Research interests/expertise

  • Architecture and Water Urbanism
  • Rethinking Cities and Informal settlements
  • 3D modelling

Areas of teaching

Architecture Design Studio (BA1)

Qualifications

  • BA(Hons) Architecture (RIBA)
  • MArch Architecture (RIBA)
  • PhD Candidate in Architecture

Conference attendance

  • The 11th Annual Symposium of Architectural Research, 3-4 October 2019, Tampere Finland. Onitiju, O, Rethinking Informality in An African City: Lagos., Paper presentation
  • Architectural Humanities Research Association, Architecture & Collective Life, 21-23 November 2019, Dundee Scotland, UK. Onitiju, O, Water as Ground: An Alternative mode of urbanisation in Lagos., Paper presentation

PhD project

PhD title

Integrating informal settlements into the Urban framework of Lagos, Nigeria.

Abstract

Lagos urban population is growing at a rate of 3.2 per cent and over 20 Million people, projected to 24 million in 2030, which in comparison to other countries is a fast urbanising pace. The prolonged application of Eurocentric concepts of planning that focus on aesthetics, form and structures is the model used in Lagos. It risks the city’ permanence in a recipe for the mass production of slums due to these economic models that on one side attracts foreign investors and a small number of foreign residents to the idea of ‘a greater Lagos’ but on another side an increasing local population that seek opportunities but cannot afford to live in anything but a slum or informal settlement. 

Furthermore, from observation and other studies, the disregard of planning that reflects the social, economic, political, and cultural spheres of the ultimately yield the same cycle of slum production and the use of unethical approaches; such as forced eviction from slum housing and demolition of these informal settlements by the Lagos state government as a method to stop a natural product of this economic model. 

Therefore, the core of this study is to focus on creating a theoretical framework of the city based on the idea that urban planning and design in Lagos needs to shift to one focused on the social, geographical, economic, political, and cultural aspects of the informal settlements in the city. The proposed framework would present an alternative model from the current, whereby this model maintains a sustainable urban city and economy by focusing on harnessing the strong social structures in informal coastal settlements.

Names of supervisors

olande-onitiju