The Sustainable Architectural Design of The Lusaka District Community Development Center

Abstract

The dependence on mining has caused Zambia a lot of problems especially that mining has been faced with a lot of challenges. Even at the pick of mining, especially copper, communities have received very little attention in terms of improvement especially in accessing better facilities. This has caused further problems to communities with less economic survival and over the years has contributed to a large extent in unplanned settlement, lack of income generating activities, lack of access to social services such as, access to clean water, proper access roads, among others due to poor planning. In most cases, schools and hospitals are not built closer to the people for easy access, and force the communities to travel long distances to access the services. This kind of settlements has for a long time faced challenges to attract even donor funds to improve lives as there are no places to build the said facilities and many other empowerment ventures, hence the people continue being exposed waterborne diseases such as cholera. The aim of this project is to bring social changes in the community through architecture. After researching the problems faced by the community, the space and profile of the project is developed. The plan, in particular, defines and explains the concept of community centers, as well as the community development business unit, which is developed through community and other stakeholder consultations’ input into decision-making about community development priorities and funding, also to assist with the consolidation of current plans and documents and to create wealth for the commutates and surrounding areas for a better place to live in considering the involvement of the community.