Market mirrors City

Earlier today, I met with architect Davy Mugamba from Pro-Plan Partners, a planning, architecture and project management practice in Kampala. He drew the two diagrams which that facilitated our discussion about Kampala's structural plan and the future planning of the city.

The first (left) are the 5 official divisions of Kampala: each has it s own leadership team, service provision and general urban plan. Some have more detailed plans than others, for example the structural plan for the central division remains largely as it was in the first 1974 city structural plan (it was the boundary of the 'colonial' city). Most of the Kampala's public land lies within the central division, whilst private land lies mostly in the other zones. The four divisions outside the central zone were planned originally in the 1994 structural plan but have largely been developed organically. In reality, these divisions are not self sufficient: people and goods move frequently between the zones and outside of them (into Greater Kampala) using all kinds of transport.

The second diagram (right) breaks down the urban forms in the Kampala, the CITY and the PLOT have always been catered for in terms of planning- the 'city' through the structural plans (1974 1994 and 2012) and the 'plot' through building control. However, both the 'neighbourhood' and the 'zone' have not received much attention in any of the structural plans. Regardless, even where there are clearer plans and regulations with the 'city' and the 'plot' there has been difficulty implementing these plans.

CITY DIVISIONS and MARKET ZONES

Through talking about the city structure. I was reminded of the zones in Owino Market ( In my last post I described 8 zones and different sets of leadership and structures for each zone) and it became clear that these zones mirrored the city divisions. I am becoming aware of parallels between Kampala and Owino Market and there is more reason to treat it a 'piece of city' .

For the implementation strategy of this project, I have started by drawing parallels between the management structures of the city and the market; this social political awareness must be addressed before realising the project.