Tag / Tanzania

by shannonchance

Trend Shifters and Hip Young Urbanites

Donald Roman NYT feature

Fabiola and Donald Roman, as featured in the New York Time real estate section.

Times are changing.  Demographers tell us that younger set is shirking automobile ownership and moving closer into American cities.

I’m proud to say that one of my former Hampton University architecture students, Donald Roman, is among them.  He and his  wife, Fabiloa, recently chose a condo in Brooklyn over the now-faded suburban dream.  And, the New York Times just celebrated their accomplishment with a feature story.

If I recall correctly, Donald was never a fan of the car.

I’m happy to say that the heavy urban design emphasis of our architecture degree program served to strengthen his understanding of the benefits of population density and walkable city design.

I’m immensely proud that Donald and Fabiloa, who met in an Upward Bound program when they were in high school, planned well and chose carefully.  They overcame tremendous odds to become homeowners under the age of 30.  And, they had the good sense to recognize that living in a densely settled area means shorter commutes and quick access to a huge range of services.

During his time at Hampton University, Donald travelled with me to Tanzania on the 2005 Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad program I conducted.  It was a true joy to have Donald among the 23 American students and 65 Tanzanian students on the program.  He was immensely popular with the entire group and his soft-spoken but optimistic spirit uplifted our group every day.

Our 2005 Fulbright-Hays group in Tanzania.

Our 2005 Fulbright-Hays group in Tanzania.

Donald also made a big difference in my life when he introduced me to Malcolm Gladwell.  He even handed me a copy of The Tipping Point as we were leaving Sunset Beach on our last day in East Africa.

The Tipping Point is about “how little things can make a big difference.”  Interestingly, the NYT feature ends with a quote from Fabi about little things that make a big difference in one’s quality of life (like a dishwasher — and I totally agree!!!).

Thanks, Donald, for sharing with me your reflections on Gladwell’s ideas when we were beginning our trek home.   Your insights got me interested enough to invest  time in cracking the cover, and I had almost finished reading the book by the time my plane landed in Norfolk.

Since then, I’ve read each of Gladwell’s new releases cover to cover.  A new one, about David and Goliath, just hit the shelves and beacons me to read.

There are interesting TED talks by Gladwell on David and Goliath and “choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce” to help get you started if you haven’t yet cracked the mystic of Gladwell’s storytelling ability… or if you just want to have some fun learning about the break through discovery of vegetable chunks.

A stunning photo of Donald, taken by Loran Doran, who was then a landscape architecture student at Virginia Tech.
Donald Roman and Joy Outlaw on one of the information-gathering outings for our urban design project.
On safari in the Ngorongoro Crater, near Arusha.
Donald chilling at Dar es Salaam’s Sunset Beach the day after the program ended.
by shannonchance

Fulbrights at “Work”

Because I blog about the experiences I’m having much more often than about than the research I’ve been doing, people sometimes ask me if I’ve been getting any work done at all.  The answer is, emphatically, YES!

The Fulbright program IS about doing scholarly work.  But it’s also about learning. It’s about making the space in our lives to get to know other people and how they do things… to remove ourselves from the ordinary humdrum long enough to learn something that’s radically new to us as Americans, but not new at all in other places.

Fulbright scholars DO have lectures to give, papers to write, and projects to conduct.  But in the end, the most valuable part of our experiences overseas rests in the friendships we make and the respect we build for each other’s culture.  That, I see, as my primary mission.

This type of cultural give-and-take is evident in the images I brought back from Tanzania — so I’ve decided to share a few here. Most are from the 2005 Fulbright-Hays program I conducted for college students from the US and Tanzania. You can also read about a lecture I gave on the topic of African architecture.  I’ll be delivering that lecture again in Belgium this spring….

Kelly Thacker (a student who was studying student affairs in Kansas) learned about urban design by working Tanzanian and US architecture students.
Here, Emmanuel James (from Tanzania) and Lauren Doran (a Virginia Tech landscape architecture student at the time) discuss strategies for city design.
We worked inside the architecture building (shown here) at the College of Lands and Architectural Studies.
But we learned a world more about life than just urban design.
We learned how Tanzanians celebrate weddings and funerals.
How they care for their young and old people.
How they have built traditionally…
…used their resources…
…and buried their dead.
We saw Christians and Muslims living side by side in harmony.
And noticed differences and similarities in the way humans live.
As one specific example, we developed new appreciation for the role of water in living, and…
…in design.
by shannonchance

Hello to Africa!

Welcoming new visitors from Africa.

I’m excited to welcome new visitors from Africa.

I’m happy to report that people from three different countries in Africa have found their way to this blog in the past few days.

It appears that some places in the world are more difficult to reach via blog than others: the region around China, the Sahara, and Greenland are still missing from my map.  Perhaps that says something about the distribution of population (Greenland and parts of Africa), resources and Internet access (parts of Africa and China), and restricted freedom of information (China)?

In any case, I’ve enjoyed sharing ideas with my African friends ever since my first visit to Tanzania (in 2003).  Since then I’ve returned to Tanzania and visited South Africa and Tunisia (all with students) as well.

A highlight of my life experience has been the Fulbright program I conducted in Tanzania in 2005, though I am still working to make sense of many things I saw and experienced.

Fulbright-Hays flier. Program conducted by Shannon Chance (PI) on behalf of Hampton University and the US Department of Education.

This is a flier for the Fulbright-Hays program I conducted on behalf of Hampton University and the US Department of Education.  (I wrote a grant proposal that was accepted, and I served as Principle Investigator of the grant and also as director of the program.)  In the group photo, I’m standing second from the right.  Many people in this photo are my friends on Facebook still today.

by shannonchance

Supporting African Cultures talk

I’m going to be giving a lecture today–November 6 at 5:30pm, Room 281 Bolton Street, Dublin 1–on “Supporting African Cultures through Architecture.” This is part of the lecture series for 4th and 5th year architecture students but the topic should be of interest to others as well and all are welcome to attend.  A description of the talk is below the photos.

Images from Tanzania (copyright Shannon Chance).

Supporting African Cultures through Architecture

Knowledge of Africa’s heritage and accomplishments is woefully lacking in the media today. The tendency to leave Africa out of the literature on architecture and planning hinders designers everywhere. It denies them access to specialized information that could help construct better environments. Their failure to understand the subtleties of various African cultures often results in modern construction – particularly that funded by foreign donors – that does not effectively meet the needs and interests of the people. Even architects, spatial planners, and policy makers who live in Africa lack access to research that could help them make better choices.

This trend presents a quandary: How can one contribute to improving quality of life around the world, without imposing values that harm others? A poor response is to avoid getting involved. Doing nothing only perpetuates inequities of health, wealth, and personal freedom.

This presentation discusses the work of Livin Mosha and Shannon Chance, two scholars working to generate this type of information. As architects and educators, Chance and Mosha share an interest in: understanding the heritage of African places, constructing a cross-cultural dialogue, developing a vision for the future, and translating the voices of Africa to others. Their goal is to promote cultural-specific architecture, planning, and policy in East Africa and beyond. This talk describes their findings and their recommendations for the future.