MADA visits Indonesia – work begins on multi-million dollar water project
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A team of Monash researchers including MADA’s Professor of Architecture Diego Ramírez-Lovering and Alysia Bennett have just returned from a whirlwind 10-day trip to Indonesia.
There, they met with residents of over 30 slum communities to begin a consultation and co-design process that aims to revitalise housing while demonstrating alternative strategies to transform water management and sanitation practices.
They also met with representatives from various government departments – housing, building works and planning – in order to ensure the five-year research project’s successful implementation.
The works are being carried out with the financial assistance of an AUD$14 million grant from the Wellcome Trust’s “Our Planet Our Health” program and with funding for capital works provided by the Asian Development Bank.
Speaking to local media, Professor Ramírez-Lovering explained “Each location has different conditions. Cooperation with local authorities is essential – they have the ‘on-the-ground’ knowledge of dwellings, in terms of flooding, clean water, sanitation, and the environment.”
Having returned to Melbourne, the team is now preparing to undertake a similar community–scoping visit to an additional study area in Fiji.
For more information about the project, visit:
http://monash.edu/news/featured-news/sustainable-development-brings-clean-water-to-urban-slums
