 Welcome everyone. Once again, let's talk about urban planning. In this episode we'll discuss the use of this concept pattern language approach in bridging the gap between formal and informal urban planning practices in Africa. I welcome my guest is Priscilla Namwanje. Priscilla and I will focus on a case study in Kampala in Uganda where a pattern language approach was used to develop a framework for wetland management that incorporates the needs of both formal and informal communities. Priscilla, welcome. Thank you, Rodrigo. I'm happy to be here. Priscilla, to help us better understand, I think it's going to help contextualize the conversation. Let us know briefly what pattern language approach is. The pattern language approach as we used it for this research involved developing what we call patterns from the informal practices of citizens and the formal practices of authorities. And then we condensed these practices into comprehensible units of knowledge. So that's what we call the pattern. What follows from the work of Christopher Alexander who did a pattern language. It's the same idea that we used in this case. Which, by the way, to our listeners, this article is included in a whole collection, Open Access devoted to Christopher Alexander and his work. Priscilla, you and the authors indicate in the article that the pattern language approach can facilitate communication between professionals and laymen and document citizens' innovative activities. So I think this is the relevance of the topic. Tell us more about that. Yes. So from my experience working with informal communities here in Kampala and generally in Uganda, I always had the question of how can these innovative actions that citizens come up with to cope with their way of life, how can we document these practices and how can they be incorporated into the formal planning process. So the pattern language presented an opportunity in which this could be done. So more so we were testing the method as a way of bridging that gap between the informal and the formal in the field of urban planning. It seems to me by a reneger article and your co-authors that the void that you want to fill was the limited use of pattern language approach and urban planning in the global south. Is that so? That is part of the void we're trying to fill indeed. The pattern language has been around for a while and has been used primarily in architecture and just gaining a bit of recognition in the discipline of urbanism, urban planning and so on. But even then that has been explored in context in the global north. So this presented a unique opportunity to test the method for urban planning within the context of the global south. Let us know about the main conclusions of your research. We found maybe two key conclusions or two key results. The first is the importance of the pattern language in the community workshops. So we had community workshops with the citizens of the enforcement working with as well as representatives from the formal communities joining these workshops. And there was an interesting could I say co-dependence between the two processes of the workshop and the pattern language because using the pattern language in the workshop allowed for effective community participation would get people were able to express what I want to say more clearly, especially from the informal communities able to document and record their practices in a way that they could be understood by everybody else within the workshop. So there was a very key input of the pattern language in the community workshop but vice versa through the community workshop process the patterns were able to be developed to be refined and to be clarified. So those two processes are co-dependent in a way and that was one of the findings that we had. And the second was the result of the work which was a framework which in the language in the patterns language we call the pattern field. And this was showing how the four sectors of the formal and informal can link with each other. And we're able to see where the gaps were for example between the goals of the formal communities and the on-ground initiatives of the citizens. There are gaps there that are bridged but also between the local actors that are actually on-ground in these communities and then the formal actors that are seated in the offices. How can we also bridge that gap? So the thinkers were the two key takeaways from this research. And as you mentioned the study was conducted in Kampala in Uganda and I'm curious to know more about the potential policy impacts of what you found. Can you tell us more about that? What we found is there are quite a number of projects, urban renewal projects and community redevelopment projects that are initiated either by the government or by different NGOs and other stakeholders. So we felt that the findings from our research could aid in the implementation and sustainability of these projects if you're able to identify who the stakeholders are that are needed for the implementation and then have them in the process of the community which are using the pattern language we're able to get everybody's input more clearly and using the framework you're able to identify who is responsible for what. I mean it seems simple but this is where the issues begin you know who is responsible to make sure this happens in this way and so when you're able to clearly identify that using a method that everybody understands then the rate of success for the implementation of this project increases. Perfect. Let's jump again into the academia realm. Researchers should explore more of these topics. So what's future venues of research more work in the global south, more applications of the pattern language approach in urban planning? So what's ahead of us? I think both. Definitely more applications of the pattern language. I think there are the numerable ways in which the pattern language can be explored in planning but also in other disciplines that are related to urban planning. I think this is one way we used it but the other ways it can be used but also studying informality in the global south, understanding it as its own mode of urbanization and trying to leverage it in the planning process for cities in the global south. Are there any materials that would like to share with our listeners to further explore the topic that we've been discussing? Yes there is a project that was done in I believe Cairo, Egypt by a lady an architect called Nanafe. I think the project is the Holstein Foundation Awards website and she used what she called it informal pattern language and she was exploring pattern language in informalities or informal settlements in Cairo. It was leaning more towards architecture and how the method can help with improving the architecture of these settlements. I think that was unique. I would also encourage the listeners to look out for refrain urbanism on Instagram and LinkedIn and here it's me and a group of colleagues that are exploring how the pattern language can be used in other communities in other cases within development in Uganda. Perfect and for our listeners the materials that Priscilla shared with us will be available where if you scroll down in the video you'll find these materials available. Priscilla let's close this episode we have a great episode at hands let's close this episode with a punchline so if you could wrap this conversation up in one or two sentences what would it be? It would be informality is its own mode of urbanization and the pattern language is a method that we can explore. Straight to the point Priscilla, thank you very much. Thank you to Rodrigo. For everybody who's watching us on YouTube you can find all the resources that I mentioned before and Priscilla also mentioned in the let's talk about urban planning website including the article that served as base for this conversation. You can also listen if you prefer other formats listen to this episode wherever you get your podcast you can subscribe to our newsletter and you can follow us on Twitter at Kojitatiu LTA.