Not Just Beautiful Spaces, but Fairer Futures

This month’s guest is Anita Urasa from Tanzania.

Anita is a registered architect and landscape architect with over 30 years of experience in Tanzania, South Africa, and beyond. She started her career in Dar es Salaam. She later pursued a Master’s in Landscape Architecture at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, graduating with the first MLA class in 2001.

Back in Dar, she founded Design Solutions, where she’s led a wide range of architectural and landscape projects—many focused on urban infrastructure, climate resilience, and green public spaces. Teaching has also been a big part of her journey, with years spent lecturing at Ardhi University and mentoring young professionals.

Anita has held leadership roles in the Architects Association of Tanzania and the East Africa Institute of Architects, and now represents Tanzania on the African Union of Architects Education Commission. She was also instrumental in establishing the Landscape Architects Association of Tanzania (LAAT), which IFLA will be officially recognised at the 2025 World Council as its eighty-first National Association.

‍

NOT JUST BEAUTIFUL SPACES, BUT FAIRER FUTURES

Across the African continent, landscapes tell stories older than language—etched into riverbeds, carved into mountainsides, and whispered through the rustle of savannah grasses. They are living archives of human memory, colonial legacy and ecological adaptation, continuously shaped by climate, culture, and growth.

Today, African cities are experiencing extraordinary growth at an unprecedented pace. From Dakar to Dar es Salaam, from Cape to Cairo, urban landscapes are being redrawn daily by planners, architects, engineers, cranes, and bulldozers; by street vendors, children playing in the streets and open spaces, urban farmers, and roadside plant nurseries; and by rainfall and rising temperatures.

‍

As the continent rapidly urbanises, often outpacing infrastructure and policy, African cities have become the frontline for some of the most pressing challenges of our time: development pressure, climate instability, spatial inequality, and food insecurity.

As a daughter of Africa and an actor in the built environment, I believe that despite this ever-changing dynamic, opportunities lie in this state of flux. Opportunity to celebrate the diversity, resilience, and complexity of African landscapes not as static backdrops to human activity, but as dynamic spaces deeply entwined in our collective pasts, presents, and futures.

We should shift our focus to the African city, viewing it not merely as a site of crisis, but as a complex landscape where global forces collide with local ingenuity. Here, questions of land, power, and survival play out vividly—in informal settlements expanding into floodplains, in vertical developments replacing old markets, and in the tensions between green ambitions and ground realities.

Urban expansion continues to outpace formal planning mechanisms, often displacing well-established communities, eroding peri-urban agricultural land, and exacerbating spatial inequality. These changes place increasing pressure on cities' capacity to feed their populations, cool their streets, and absorb climate shocks. The consequences are not merely environmental—they are profoundly social.

Yet, African cities are also hubs of innovation. In the face of adversity, residents repurpose spaces, cultivate food along roadsides and undeveloped land, and negotiate land in ways that challenge rigid zoning maps. These are not merely green spaces – they are acts of resistance and resilience.

I perceive African urban landscapes not merely as problems to be solved, but as terrains of knowledge, where every informal plot, market corridor, or stormwater trench holds insights into how people adapt, endure, and envision better futures. Our objective should be to elevate these landscapes—and the individuals who shape them—as essential to understanding and shaping the urban future of the continent.

Africa’s urban future is already upon us. Let us learn to interpret its landscapes with care, urgency, and a sense of hope.  Let’s not just create beautiful spaces, but also fairer futures.

‍