Rexford Assasie Oppong is a Senior Lecturer of Architecture in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST) Kumasi. Rexford is currently undertaking a PhD studies in the School of Architecture - University of Liverpool, UK. The PhD research centres on “Architectural Taste/Habitus”: in Search of Responsive Architecture in Ghana (A Case for Africa). He is the winner of THE APPRAISAL INSTITUTE PRIZE for the best paper (The paradox of landlessness – housing transformation and development at Abakam fishing village in Ghana) Delivery Award at the African Real Estate Society (AfRES)/Commonwealth Association of Surveyors and Land Economists (CASLE); Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)//International Real Estate Society (IRES) organised/sponsored 2007 International Conference held in Livingstone, Zambia. He has conducted series of research and presented his findings at international conferences/workshops and published in reputable journals/// Please click on FULL TEXT for a SUMMARY of PhD Research Overview & for a list of additional publications by R. A. Oppong available online/// REPORT on PhD Research Overview by R. A. Oppong attached below.
"Architectural Taste/Habitus - Conflicts and Contradictions in Search of Responsive Green Urban Architecture in Ghana (A Case for Africa)"
Introduction
This research conducted by Rexford Assasie Oppong [School of Architecture, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom] focuses on Ghana; The search of responsive green urban architecture has become a hot issue in the world as a matter of paramount concern and importance. Responsive green urban architecture has become complicated and seemingly elusive with a mixture of virtues and vices: major cities of Ghana are confronted with challenges as most growing African cities; with regards to teardowns, gentrification and urban sprawl leading to suburbia and to some extent exurbia development with associated contradistinctions to appropriate high density development, infrastructural/services provision, preservation of traditional architecture and public open spaces to generate a responsive green urban living environment
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Background
The 1990s saw a “short – lived” classical literary works on “green theory” (Harrison et al, 1996 ; Goodin, 1992 ). The analysis of the “Green Case” affected developing countries by showing how closely grave ecological problems are bound to the developing countries need for development, and demonstrating the systematic connections between aid, debt, development and the environment.
Ghana has had a checkered urban development history with negative affects of jumbled land use planning and management as well environmental degradation and defacing images of towns and cities (De Leon, 1886 ; Guggler and Flanagan, 1979 ; Grant and Yankson, 2002 ). In an address entitled “Give our habitat a greenish, beautiful look”; a former Vice President of Ghana, on 18 September 2002, bemoaned the rate at which the flora and fauna of the Ghana are being depleted as a result of urbanisation. According to the Vice President, the culture of floral beautification of our villages, towns and cities, which in the good old days won for Kumasi-the second largest and commercial city of Ghana; the accolade, the ‘Garden City’ of West Africa has become oblivious even though it is been said that original Garden City concept by Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928), tells “nothing but lies” (Jacobs, 1961) .
The pertinent questions for this research therefore are: are the happenings in Ghana, perhaps a phenomenon of “structures structured predisposed as a function to structure structures” or Taste (manifested preferences) of people? Is there ‘miscognition’ in Ghana with regards to greening the environment: where one acts as if one does not know the rules of the ‘game’ (of greening) if any? And above all, does Ghana as a nation have a green policy to guide architectural/environmental oriented development?
Please find attached below FULL SUMMARY of PhD Research
by Rexford Assasie Oppong including;
Content
Introduction
Problem Statement in Brief
Background/Questions of the Research
Snapshot of research theoretical framework
Research methodology
Expected Results /Conclusions of Research
Endnotes of References
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Link to additional publications by R. A. Oppong available online:
www.rics.org/jarer;
www.ajol.info/viewissue.php?jid=229&id=3211;
www.emeraldinsight.com/02637472.ht
www.casleconferences.co.uk/northernireland.html; www.worldsustainable.org/conferences/conferences.html;
www.arcom.ac.uk/workshop8wolverhampton.pdf; www.casle.org/newsletters/CASLE%20Newsletter%2033.pdf;
