New buildings should be designed following concepts that will make them robust against expected climatic changes during their lifetime, the next 50 to 100 years. African countries are facing an acute housing shortage, with the continent’s population projected to double by 2050, and the fastest urbanization rate in the world.

Climate change is providing progressively harsher boundary conditions, posing strong challenges both to the traditional, climate aware, construction traditions and to the new models sometimes inspired from occidental development which took place under perceived abundance and low cost of energy, materials and environmental “space”, conditions that are rapidly vanishing. With the goal of increasing the energy performance, quality of life and sustainability of West-African buildings, ABC21 will pursue the following four interconnected objectives:

1. Identify and document African and European affordable bioclimatic designs and local materials;
2. Perform exchange activities for policy makers on low-cost and effective bioclimatic construction;
3. Develop sustainable and cost-effective supply of local construction materials produced by local businesses;
4. Promote innovation on state of the art surface finishings and future weather files.