Abstract
This paper argues for the appreciation of multiple identities present within cities in Africa by discussing the pedagogic experiment of an architectural design studio and the design projects of the studio between 2017 and 2019. Mnazi Mmoja is a Kiswahili phrase loosely translated to mean "one coconut tree"- oneness in a post-colonial context. This paper interrogates the problematic single-stroke description of African challenges, a continent with over 51 countries with diverse cultures, ethnicities, and urban morphologies. The paper argues that there are many Mnazi Mmoja. Unit15X’s design teaching strategy has been to challenge knowledge in architecture, landscape, and urban design by First taking students at the University of Johannesburg to other African countries to foster cultural awareness. Secondly, Unit15X’s studio utilizes landscape themes, allowing students to research complex relationships between urban inhabitants and their landscapes and their production to enhance critical awareness and move beyond aesthetic explorations. Our curiosity guides us to understand what it means to practice architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and planning by interrogating public spaces on the continent. This paper discusses Unit15X's studio exploration of Larval (Emergent) Landscapes on the public space of the Mnazi Moja site of historical and cultural significance in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania through two students' speculative design projects.Two students’ projects, The Anti-Atlas, and The One Coconut Tree, explore the concept of Mnazi Mmoja- 'oneness' - to pause questions that challenge planning and design legislations and begin to speculate on how indigenous knowledge, multiple identities, and African material conditions can be (re)-applied to contemporary contexts in order to raise awareness of: identity; multiculturalism in cites; post-colonial urbanism within cities in an attempt to reinterpret the multiple representations of the concept of Mnazi Mmoja.