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Looking Back on a Radical Idea: The Buranest Cooperative Rural New Town, Amhara, Ethiopia
Author(s) -
Oswald Franz
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
architectural design
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.128
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1554-2769
pISSN - 0003-8504
DOI - 10.1002/ad.1938
Subject(s) - megacity , urbanization , sustainable development , economic growth , political science , geography , economic history , economy , history , law , economics
Does the megacity have to inevitably represent the urban future? Could the seemingly onward march of rapid and large‐scale urbanisation in fact be interceded by 2050 with the development of more, smaller local towns? Architect and Professor Emeritus at ETH Zurich Franz Oswald is the founding president of the New Ethiopian Sustainable Town (NESTown). He describes here how he and a small group of Ethiopian and Swiss professionals intervened in 2010 in urban migration by founding the new farming community of Buranest in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, and what the impact of this invention might be 35 years hence.