Transdisciplinarity with contradictions: through a sustainable energy co-innovation hub in Kigali

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of the ways in which design can promote and steer co-innovation and co-learning among different facets of academia and education. It is essentially a study on a transdisciplinary approach through architecture. The analysis part of this research was based on three theories; Quadruple helix, Architecting Interaction, and Interdisciplinary Research in order to frame how to stimulate an innovations system by employing a transdisciplinary approach. Transdisciplinarity in this context is interpreted as a co-learning process between different actors aiming to invent a comprehensive innovation system. In turn, co-learning means that those different actors have mutual/bidirectional exchanges of expertise and ideas each drawing from their respective fields of knowledge, skills, and cultures. Therefore, designing the spatial context to encourage this bidirectional exchange becomes the key research question; ‘How can design promote ‘Bidirectional Learning between different actors in the educational sphere?’ The case study of the thesis is situated within the East African context. Initiated by the SIDA (The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) Funded-Partnership, this thesis is part of a collaborative pilot project between Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Rwanda. The project is about re-inventing the African Center of Excellence in Energy for Sustainable Development (ACE-ESD) in order for it to eventually become a co-innovation hub for sustainable energy and growth, especially in Rwanda. The critical challenges and contradictions this project faces are the fragmentation of the four sectors in the Quadruple helix model; the initial actors belong only to the academic sector and are monodisciplinary. Additionally, the Rwandan social structure is characterized by acute hierarchies and inequality which influences the relationship of the actors and their pattern of learning as dominant and subservient. A Co-Innovation hub should be a co-learning space aiming to equally include a variety of academic and non-academic fields. Based on what the particular context of this case study entails, the challenges and contradictions mentioned above become a core design concept. In a way, the coexistence of contradictions and their intersections are perceived as a value. The theories studied in the analysis part and the duality of the contradictions were turned to be a design strategy through the architectural materiality and immateriality.