Mikaela Patrick
MA work
MA work
Dandal Kura
This project locates Lake Chad as a site for exploring a radically different conception of nature, proposing an understanding of nature as an open system, subject to complex social, political and environmental fluctuations. The project consists of several design interventions that employ space technologies to combat climate change; where cooperatives of women farmers across Lake Chad form a new network of emancipatory land practices on the degraded lands of the Sahel.
The network of Dandal Kura is formed by local women’s cooperatives across the Lake Chad Ecosystem.
Dandal Kura means meeting place in Kanuri and the project takes precedent from the Dandal Kura radio station, an initiative started to enhance communication among displaced communications. Working in partnership with ICRISAT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and Lake Chad Basin Group, the network creates an alliance between new and existing technology.
Firstly, small scale technical interventions provided through the research of ICRISAT enhance existing land practices.
And secondly, the Lake Chad Basin Group funds internet access terminals which allow for a remote sensing station to be built at each site. This forms the communications hub where land practices and knowledge, can be shared across the network, allowing for the advancement of locally formed adaptable modes of production, and to allow these practices to multiply and disperse across the land.
Dandal Kura advocates that women are the agents of transformation in adapting to climate change, and indigenous knowledge of the land should be empowered to harness a symbiotic relationship between the land and all its inhabitants. Each intervention forms a new meeting place, Dandal Kura, and as well as generating small-scale economic and agricultural growth; has massive potential of social transformation through the empowerment of women.
The project proposes 3 sample sites from across the network of cooperatives: the Desert Garden, the Algae Farm and the Seed Bank.
The connectivity of Dandal Kura allows these adaptable systems to be employed more strategically in constantly fluctuating conditions, seeking to combat the adverse situations of environmental crisis, food scarcity, and malnutrition that are affecting the Lake Chad eco-system. The network of technological interventions that work with land use practices to create social spaces for the emancipation of indigenous women in the context of climate change.
 Precisely from the degraded land caused by climate change and desertification; I am proposing that the Dandal Kura network and its interventions are the site of a new transformative horizon in the Lake Chad Ecosystem.
Info
Info
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MA Degree
School
School of Architecture
Programme
MA Architecture, 2017
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Contact
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+44 (0)7824 355288
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My interests in architecture lie in the relationship between architecture, the environment and health. Looking at health as a social problem, I'm interest in how the architecture of healthcare extends into the city, and the consequences that can have on communities.
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Degrees
- MA Architecture (Hons), University of Edinburgh, 2014; International Workshop, Metáfora Tallers D'Art Contemporani, 2010
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Experience
- Architectural assistant, Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, Barcelona, 2013–2014; Project coordinator and Architectural assistant, Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, Shanghai, 2014–2015; Installation Design + Construction, Destination Dalmarnock, ESALA Projects, 2014