The article presents the reasons for which the issue of providing housing to low-income citizens has been a real challenge in Addis Ababa during the recent years and will continue to be, given that its population is growing extremely fast. It examines the tensions between the universal aspirations and the local realities in the case of some of Ethiopia’s most ambitious mass pro-poor housing schemes, such as the “Addis Ababa Grand Housing Program” (AAGHP), which was launched in 2004 and was integrated in the “Integrated Housing Development Program” (IHDP) in 2006. The article argues that the quotidian practices of communities and their socio-economic and cultural characteristics are related to the spatial attributes of co-housing practices. Drawing upon the idea that there is a mutual correspondence between social and spatial structures, it places particular emphasis on the analysis of the IHDP and aims to show that to shape strategies that take into account the social and cultural aspects of daily life of the poor citizens of Addis Ababa, it is pivotal to invite them to take part in the decision-making processes regarding their resettlement. Departing from the fact that a large percentage of the housing supply in Addis Ababa consists of informal unplanned housing, the article also compares the commoning practices in kebele houses and condominium units. The former refers to the legal informal housing units owned by the government and rented to their dwellers, whereas the latter concerns the housing blocks built in the framework of the IHDP for the resettlement of the kebele dwellers. The article analyzes these processes of resettlement, shedding light of the fact that kebele houses were located at the inner city, whereas the condominiums are located in the suburbs. Despite the fact that the living conditions in the condominium units are of a much higher quality than those in the kebele houses, their design underestimated or even neglected the role of the commoning practices. The article highlights the advantages of commoning practices in architecture and urban planning, and how the implementation of participation-oriented solutions can respond to the difficulties of providing housing. It argues that understanding the significance of the endeavors that take into account the opinions of dwellers during the phase of decision-making goes hand in hand with considering commoning practices as a source of architecture and urban planning frameworks for low-cost housing in this specific context. The key argument of the article is that urban planning and architecture solutions in Addis Ababa should be based on the principles of the so-called “negotiated planning” approach, which implies a close analysis of the interconnections between planning, infrastructure, and land.

这篇文章介绍了为什么向低收入公民提供住房问题在亚的斯亚贝巴近年来一直是一个真正的挑战，并且鉴于其人口增长非常快，这一问题将继续存在。它审查了埃塞俄比亚一些最雄心勃勃的大规模扶贫住房计划，例如2004年启动并整合了“亚的斯亚贝巴大住房计划”（AAGHP）的普遍愿望与当地现实之间的张力。在2006年的“综合住房发展计划”（IHDP）中，该文章认为，社区的日常实践及其社会经济和文化特征与共同住房实践的空间属性有关。根据社会和空间结构之间存在相互对应关系的想法，它特别强调对IHDP的分析，旨在表明，在制定考虑亚的斯亚贝巴贫困公民日常生活的社会和文化方面的战略时，邀请​​他们参与决策至关重要安置过程。与亚的斯亚贝巴的住房供应中很大一部分是非正式的非计划性住房这一事实不同，该文章还比较了kebele住房和共管公寓的惯用做法。前者是指政府拥有并出租给其居民的合法非正式住房单位，而后者是指在IHDP框架内建造的用于安置kebele居民的住房。本文分析了这些移民安置过程，揭露了kebele房屋位于市中心的事实，而公寓位于郊区。尽管公寓单元中的生活条件要比kebele房屋中的生活条件要好得多，但其设计却低估了甚至忽略了普通做法的作用。本文重点介绍了在建筑和城市规划中常见做法的优势，以及实施面向参与的解决方案如何应对提供住房的困难。它认为，在决策阶段理解考虑居民意见的努力的重要性是与在这种特定背景下考虑将普通做法作为廉价住房的建筑和城市规划框架的来源并存的。本文的主要论点是，亚的斯亚贝巴的城市规划和建筑解决方案应基于所谓的“谈判规划”方法的原则，这意味着对规划，基础设施和土地之间的相互联系进行仔细分析。