The Play Mahonda workshop took place from 21-27 September in Mahonda, Zanzibar and Stone Town, Zanzibar. This weeklong workshop aimed to test the adaptive planning principles developed in the book To Build a City in Africa: A History and a Manual (International New Town Institute, nai010, 2019) by applying the principles to a real case study. This case was brought forward by the Department of Urban and Rural Planning (DoURP) as one of many new urban developments needed on the island of Unguja. Together with input from African Architecture Matters (AA Matters), the location of Mahonda was chosen as most suitable for a test site. Mahonda is a small farming community of 7000 – 12000 residents (no precise numbers were available), concentrated in linear development along existing roads. It is roughly 20 kilometers north of Stone Town.
In addition to testing ‘real world’ application of the planning principles, auxiliary goals of this workshop were (1) to build collaboration and strengthen networks among the international experts, the DoURP planning officers, and local residents; (2) to support negotiations among stakeholders; and (3) to make a first step towards the development of a Local Area Plan (LAP) for Mahonda.
The workshop brought together 8 experts in urban planning issues, or ‘resource persons’, with the DoURP planning officers. The week began with a day of introductions to the site and relevant stakeholders. A community meeting at the Mahonda District Council Hall allowed DoURP, local residents, and external resource persons to get to know each other as well as the main opportunities and challenges of the site. A group walk through the site in the afternoon provided the opportunity to observe and document the local landscape and built environment.
The following day, a serious gaming event was held with largely the same participants. The game materialized the Mahonda site at a scale of 1:300, where the (redrawn) site plan was used as a gameboard. The game rules and pieces were developed in collaboration with Play the City, and the game was facilitated by Cristina Ampatzidou. The ‘Play Mahonda’ game was conceived as a test of the principles, and as a way to engage local community members in a participatory design process. 10 teams of ±5 players used the game to develop different future scenarios for Mahonda. The players included 48 local residents (invited by DoURP), including farmers, teachers, and local community leaders (Shehia).
The game results produced new insights for the planning team, including a prevailing desire throughout the community for dense, mid-rise, multi-family housing; a local need to protect agricultural land from encroachment; and a clear mandate for ‘modern’ amenities such as a new hospital, a fresh market, more schools, and a bus station. Some teams showed more sensitivity to specific issues such as the local need for a daycare facility and orphanage, improved accessibility for people with physical disabilities, or the desire to protect existing cemeteries from redevelopment.
An evaluation round revealed that the players appreciated the opportunity to express their ideas and opinions on the future of their town. They also indicated their appreciation for the resource persons who travelled to Mahonda. One participant noted, “We need a well-structured system to shift from individual houses to more dense development; we are ready to accept the changes.”
Following the game, the final two days of the workshop shifted to a focus on capacity building with DoURP. For these sessions, both morning and afternoon presentations by resource persons were followed by intense discussions and interactive sketch sessions to produce a conceptual plan for Mahonda. The first sketch session divided the group into two smaller groups who addressed the area’s main connections and existing opportunities. The second sketch session divided the group into four smaller groups that explored different future scenarios. The scenarios were meant as thought experiments of extreme situations to help workshop participants think beyond the expected plans. The third session brought these ideas together in one plan at national, regional, urban and neighborhood scales, while the fourth session was used to finalize drawings.
At the end of the workshop, the group reviewed the principles individually and evaluated the drawings for Mahonda based on these principles. Although most of the principles had been well-integrated, it was observed that more research was needed to ensure that some of the principles be adequately applied. Following this, DoURP planning officers presented the plan to the Director of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Dr. Muhammad Juma. Dr. Juma expressed his satisfaction with the work, and requested that the resource persons maintain contact with DoURP and explore the possibility of further collaboration in the future.
