Mickey Leland

Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, is one of the 35 fastest-growing cities in the world. According to predictions by UN-Habitat (2015), in this decade the population of Addis will grow from 4.1 to 4.9 million. Even though it is always debatable how slums are defined in Addis Ababa, UN-habitat estimates that 76.4 per cent of the total urban population lives in slums or under substandard conditions. In 2004, the Ethiopian government started the so called ‘Grand Housing Program’ to eradicate the slums and to care for the urban poor. Cross-cutting agendas here were: 1) to create 200,000 jobs; 2) to promote the development of 10,000 small scale enterprises; 3) to deliver 6,000 ha of serviced land; and 4) to enhance and build the capacity of local contractors, consultants, etcetera. Initial pilot projects were tested in the city of Addis Ababa and later the programme was scaled-up to a nationwide housing initiative. So far, in Addis Ababa alone, 240,000 housing units have been built. Mainly built as condominiums, the dwellings are infills of small vacant lots in the existing city fabric, or are a replacement for slum-cleared areas. But a large number of these condo sites are located on the fringes of the city, like the Mickey Leland Condominium Site.

Mickey Leland is located in the north-western part of Addis Ababa, situated on a 26-ha-steep site sloping southwards. Named after George Thomas Mickey Leland – an anti- poverty activist and congressman from Texas, who died in Addis Ababa in 1989 – the housing project consists of 123 blocks with five different typologies. Every typology has slight variations, in some cases, for instance, the ground floor is filled with commercial use and in others is used for housing, depending on the location of the block within the neighbourhood. An estimated 24,000 dwellers live in the 4,800 housing units.

The most recurrent block typology is the so-called C5 Type, constructed with a frame of reinforced concrete (precast beams) and hollow concrete-block masonry infill. It always consists of five storeys, the maximum height for which no elevator is required. An exterior steel stairwell, placed in the middle of the façade, connects all floors and gives access to galleries, which in turn connect all units on a floor. The C5 Type consists of 40 units: ten studio units, ten one-bedroom units and 20 two-bedroom units.

Like many social housing schemes, Mickey Leland faces the clash of architecture, program and typology with culture and lifestyle. For example, the most common way of food preparation in Ethiopia requires a cooking space in an outdoor yard. This programmatic need was translated in most condominium housing by providing a shared ‘cooking building’, but most of these cooking-buildings are not used as envisaged because of their inconvenient placement, too far away from the individual dwelling. Instead, inhabitants choose to extend their kitchen space onto the gallery, where it is further appropriated and privatized, especially for the units at the two corners of the floor. Similar examples of spatial appropriation occur on the balconies where residents extend their living spaces with simple structures. Mickey Leland is not short of open space, but it has not been designed or adjusted to meet important programmatic needs, for example parking. Since the condominiums were never envisaged for higher-income groups, the issue of parking was not addressed. Upon completion, it became obvious that the lack of parking space is problematic. Many open spaces are therefore being converted into parking lots or for example satellite-dish yards.

Although better fitted with infrastructure and services than regular slum areas, one cannot but notice Mickey Leland’s barrenness and monotonous architecture. This is, however, mitigated by the topography, which has resulted in a cascade of buildings. The monotony of form and morphological flatness is counterbalanced by inner courtyards and retaining walls that give a strong definition of space.