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Dr. Irene Appeaning Addo

Position: 
Senior Research Fellow
Email: 
Iappeaningaddo@ug.edu.gh
Section: 
Media and Visual Arts
Profile

Irene Appeaning Addo is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. Her research areas include the study of the architectural traditions in Africa, specifically in Ghana, urban housing studies, and postcolonial housing studies. Irene is involved in several projects including; Understanding Everyday Urbanisms in African Urban Cities; Adaptation and self-recovery solutions for housing flooding resilience in Northern Ghana; Culture and Arts in Contemporary African Urbanism and its Hinterlands; Architecture and Planning in the Tropics: From Imperial Gold Coast to Tropical Ghana and Keeping your cool: Measuring thermal comfort in heritage buildings. She has contributed to the following books; Architecture and Politics in Africa (SOAS), Housing and SDGs in Urban Africa. Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements (Springer Nature) Climate Change in Ghana: The Human Dimension and Urban Planning: Practices (Afram Publications), Challenges and Benefits (Nova). She has published in top journals including Energy and Buildings, The Journal of Architecture, Urban Studies, Journal of Urbanism, Urban Forum, Asian and African Studies Journal, Journal of African Cultural Studies, Contemporary Journal of African Studies, Feminist Africa, and many more. She was a recipient of the prestigious Urban Studies Foundation International Fellowship and the University of Liverpool Virtual Fellowship in 2022. Irene is a registered architect with the Ghana Institute of Architects and a member of the African Studies Association of Africa.

Education
  • Ph.D Geography and Resource Development. University of Ghana, Legon (2013).
  • M.Sc. Housing and Inner City Revitalisation. Institute of Housing and Urban Studies (IHS), Rotterdam, Netherlands (2002).
  • P.G. Dip. Architecture. University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana (1999).
  • B.Sc. (Hons) Design. University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana (1994).
Research Interests
  • Understanding everyday urbanism in African cities
  • Improving flood resilience in earthen buildings in Africa.
  • Measuring thermal comfort in heritage buildings.
  • Changing architectural traditions and heritage in Africa.
  • Tans-national and post-colonial architecture in Africa.
  • African cultures, arts and architecture's contribution to the understanding of contemporary African Urbanisms.
Research Projects
  • Tuwe Pamoja: (“Let’s be together” for equitable urban nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation), IDRC. 2024.
  • Adaptation and self-recovery solutions for housing flooding resilience in Ghana (2021 – 2022). GCRF and the Royal Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Development Seed Funding.
  • Keeping Your Cool: Modern Architectural Heritage and Climatic Comfort in Ghana (2019 – 2021). Overseas Development (ODA) and University of Liverpool Research Seed Funding.
  • Entanglement, Mobility and Improvisation: Culture and Arts in Contemporary African Urbanism and its Hinterlands (2018 – 2023). Andrew Mellon Funding. Reference No.: 1808-06063
  • Housing and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Urban Africa (2018 – 2019). Funding from ARUA Centre for Housing Studies, University of Lagos.
  • Architecture and Planning in the Tropics: From Imperial Gold Coast to Tropical Ghana (2016 – 2018). British Academy funding
  • Energy consumption in public and private residential buildings (2016 – 2017). Institutional Funding
  • A Study of the Architectural traditions of the people in the Northern Region of Ghana (2016 – to date). Institutional Funding
  • Climate Change Adaptation Research and Training Capacity for Development (CCARTCD). (2011 – 2014). IDRC Funding
  • Urban housing development in developing countries in the 21st Century under the scenario of changing family systems and nuclearisation of families. (2008 – 2012). PhD work.
Research Activities

  • African Cities and Climate Change Adaptation

  • African Urbanisms

  • Historical cities and architecture

  • Infrastructure and urbanisation

  • Writing workshops on the built environment and African Architecture

  • Colonial housing policies and their impact on contemporary housing policies

  • African Traditional architecture and Indigenous knowledge systems.

Publications
  1. Bras, A., Yakubu, I., Mohammed, H., Idowu, I., Jones, R., Gagnon, A., ... & Addo, I. A. (2024). Bio-stabilising earthen houses with tannins from locally available resources. Case Studies in Construction Materials, e03182.
  2. Addo, I. A. (2024). Blurring the boundaries: everyday urbanism in Accra Airport City. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 1-23.
  3. Addo, I. A. (2024). Accra Airport City I: A Global Space and An Exclusionary Enclave. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 00219096241243059.
  4. Addo, I. A., Atobrah, D., Frehiwot, M., & Kwansa, B. K. (2023). Dealing with COVID-19 in Ghanaian urban shared low-income housing: What it reveals and the planning implications. Cities, 142, 104555.
  5. Appeaning Addo, I. (2023). “That Is Still our Tradition but in a Modern Form, but it Still Tells our Story”: Transitions in Buildings in Northern Ghana. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 35(1), 104-120.
  6. Frehiwot, M., Addo, I. A., & Adotey, E. (2023). Academic Research in the Era of COVID-19: Insights from an African Higher Education Institution. Global Village Review, 1(1), 18-18.
  7. Irene Appeaning Addo (2022). New homes for a new state: foreign ideas in Ghana’s public housing programmes. In: Joanne Tomkinson, Daniel Mulugeta and Julia Gallagher (eds). ‘Architecture and Politics in Africa: making, living and imagining identities through buildings’. James Carrey, Oxford.
  8. Mohammadpourkarbasi, H., Jackson, I., Nukpezah, D., Appeaning Addo, I., and Assasie Oppong, R., (2022). Evaluation of Thermal Comfort in Modernist Library Buildings in The Tropical Climate of Kumasi, Ghana. Energy and Building. 268, 1-14 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2022.11221
  9. Frehiwot, M., Atobrah, D., and Appeaning Addo, I., (2022). Negotiating Spaces, Exercising Agency and Managing Multiple Roles: The Lived Experiences of University of Ghana Women Academics under COVID-19. Feminist Africa.
  10. Appeaning Addo, I., and Mba, C. C. (2022). Genealogies of Ghana’s housing crisis: the role of colonial interventions and neoliberal reforms. International Journal of Housing Policy, 22(2), 299-313.
  11. Adom, D., Chukwuere, J. E., Addo, I. A., Tabi-Agyei, E., and Thulla, P. F. Y. (2021). African proverbs for Cultural Education: A Step towards Digital Archiving. Journal of History Culture and Art Research, 10(4), 44-59.
  12. Appeaning Addo, I., Olajide O.A. (2021). Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals: Considerations for Household and Indoor Air Pollution in Nigeria and Ghana. In: Nubi T.G., Anderson I., Lawanson T., Oyalowo B (eds). ‘Housing and SDGs in Urban Africa. Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements’. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4424-2_8
  13. Appeaning Addo, I, Alhassan, O., Abokyi, S. and Kutor, S., (2020). Assessing Municipal Solid Waste Management Practices and Challenges in the Techiman Municipality, Ghana. West African Journal of Applied Ecology, vol. 28(2), pp.118-131. 
  14. Iain Jackson, Ola Uduku, Irene Appeaning Addo & Rexford Assase Oppong (2019) The Volta River Project: planning, housing and resettlement in Ghana, 1950–1965, The Journal of Architecture, 24:4, 512-548, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2019.1643389
  15. Christian, A., Appeaning Addo, I., Codjoe, SNA. (2019). Selecting Climate Change Adaptation Options: A Case Study of an Urban Coastal Community in Accra, Ghana. (Chapter 6) In: Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe and Delali Benjamin Dovie (eds). “Climate Change in Ghana: The Human Dimension”. Pp. 95–119, Afram Publications.
  16. Appeaning Addo, I., (2017). Modernist architecture and its implication on energy consumption in public and private residential apartments in Accra, Ghana. In: M. Young (ed.), AMPS Proceedings Series 9. Living and Sustainability: An Environmental Critique of Design and Building Practices, Locally and Globally. London South Bank University, London, 8-9 February 2017. pp.370-388.  ISSN 2398-9467
  17. Appeaning Addo, I. (2016). Assessing residential satisfaction among low income households in multi-habited dwellings in selected low income communities in Accra. Urban Studies, 53(4), 631-650. DOI: 10.1177/0042098015571055 Sage Publication
  18. Appeaning Addo, K. & Appeaning Addo, I., (2016). Coastal Erosion Management in Ghana: Combining Local Knowledge with Empirical Research. Jamba: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies. 8(1), 1-10. doi: 10.4102/jamba. v8, i1.274
  19. Appeaning Addo, I., (2016). Traditional Earth Houses in Vittin, Tamale: Identity and perception of the tradition-modernity conflict. Contemporary Journal of African Studies, 4 (1), 97-128
  20. Appeaning Addo, I. (2016). Housing maintenance in multi-habited low-income houses in Accra. Journal of International Real Estate and Construction Studies, 4(1). Nova Science Publishers
  21. Appeaning Addo, I., & Codjoe, S. N. A. (2016). Exploring the link between fisher folks' experimental knowledge and climate variability in an urban coastal community In Accra. Indilinga African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, 15(2): 71-87.
  22. Biney, I. K., Appeaning Addo, I. & Abu, M., (2015). The Effect of the 1987 Education Reforms on Youth Unemployment in Ghana: An Exploratory Study. Current Politics and Economics of Africa, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 513-535. Nova Science Publishers.
  23. O. Pabi, S.N.A. Codjoe, N.A. Sah and I. Appeaning Addo (2015). Climate change linked to failing fisheries in coastal Ghana. A brief report on research supported by the International Development Research Centre’s Climate Change and Water program. Produced by WRENmedia. IDRC Digital Library http://hdl.handle.net/10625/54163
  24. Appeaning Addo, I., (2014). Urban Low-Income Housing Development in Ghana: Politics, Policy and Challenges (Chapter 6). In: Miguel P. Amado (ed) “Urban Planning: Practices, Challenges and Benefits”. Pp. 89-118. Nova Science Publishers.
  25. Appeaning Addo, I., Codjoe, S.N.A. et al., (2014). Knowledge Management Systems and Education for Building Smallholder Resilience to Climate Change (Chapter IV). In: Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Africa Agriculture Status Report 2014: Climate Change on Smallholder Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  26. Appeaning Addo, I. (2013). Perceptions and Acceptability of Multihabitation as an Urban Low-Income Housing Strategy in Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, Ghana. Urban Forum Volume 24, Issue 4, pp. 543-571. DOI: 10.1007/S12132-013-9192-2 Springer Netherlands.
  27. Irene Appeaning Addo (2013). Sharing, Cooperation and Conflicts: Multihabitation as an Urban Low-Income Housing Strategy in Accra. In: Laryea, S. and Agyepong, S. (Eds) Proceedings of 5th West Africa Built Environment Research (WABER) Conference, 12-14 August 2013, British Council, Accra, Ghana, pp. 977-992.
  28. Appeaning Addo, I. (2012). Multihabitation and Urban Low-Income Housing: The Case of Greater Accra Metropolitan Area. PhD thesis in the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, Legon.
  29. Appeaning Addo, I.  (2011). Construction and Building Materials (Chapter 9) in Ghana Housing Profile. United Nations Human Settlement Programme, UN-Habitat, Kenya
Conferences and Conference Proceedings
  1. Discussant/presenter,  Accessing Colonial exchanges and architectural heritage in PRAAD, Ghana: Opportunities and Challenges in Symposium 'Document Fever: Encounters with the architecture of the colonial architecture archive'. at the AA and ASSC (BBK) - 25 Feb 2022
  2. Co-Presenter, Negotiating Spaces, Exercising Agency, and Managing Multiple Roles: The Lived Experiences of University of Ghana Women Academics under COVID-19. 7th School of Social Sciences International Conference, University of Ghana, 3-4 November 2021.
  3. Co-facilitated and presented in a joint virtual Urbanities Project Summer Institute/Reading Group as part of the African Urbanism Project, 10-23 October 2021; 10 September 2021; 8 June 2021.
  4. Roundtable presenter/discussant, Informal Settlements as Evidence of Spontaneous Placemaking. ICAS conference 22-28 August 2021.
  5. Participated in IIAS Humanities across Borders program (HaB) workshop, 19 August 2021.
  6. Presenter. New homes for a new state: foreign ideas in Ghana’s public housing programmes. A paper presented at an international conference organized by SOAS on the theme ‘Architecture and politics in Africa - making, living and imagining identities through buildings’, 16 September 2020, Webinar organised under the auspices of the BISA Africa/IR group.
  7. ‘Epidemic Urbanism: Reflections on History’. 28-29 May 2020. Society of Architectural Historians. file:///C:/Users/Dr.%20Irene/Downloads/2020_05_25%20Epidemic%20Urbanism_11.pdf
  8. Presenter, De-colonial Buildings and Glocal Architecture: The case of Airport City I, at an international Symposium organized by Urban Studies, University of Basel, Switzerland in collaboration with Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, on the theme ‘Infrastructural Legacies and Futures of the African City’. 4 November 2019. J.H.K. Nketia Conference Hall, IAS.
  9. Presenter, Vernacular Architecture in Translation: The Tongo Hills Chief Palace in Ghana. A paper presented at the African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) 3rd Biennial Conference with theme African and Africana Knowledges: Past Representations, Current Discourses, Future Communities, October 24-26, 2019, United States International University-Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
  10. Presenter, Glocalisation of Architecture as reflected in the real estate industry. A paper presented at the Ghana Studies Association conference with theme “Ghana as Center”, 10-13 July 2019, University of Ghana, Legon.
  11. Presenter, The traditional architectural practice of the people of Gbabshe. Institute of African Studies Seminar Series, 02 May 2019.
  12. Presenter, Interrogating the African-centredness and Gender Responsiveness of Higher Education Curricula in Ghana Today. A paper presented at the Ghana Studies Association conference, “Ghana as Center”, 10-13 July 2019, University of Ghana, Legon.
  13. Presenter, Traditional Earth-Constructed Houses in Tamale, Ghana: Tradition, Identity and Modernity, A paper presented at the conference “Philadelphia 2019: Landscapes of Succession” by Vernacular Architecture Forum, University of Pennsylvania, 28 May – 2 June 2019, Philadelphia, USA
  14. Participated in the 58th Biennale art exhibition, 11-13 May 2019, Venice, Italy
  15. Chaired a session on “Youth Service in Africa” (Session 3), All African People’s Conference: Revisiting the 1958 All-African Peoples Conference: The Unfinished Business of Liberation and Transformation, 5-8 December 2018, University of Ghana, Legon.
  16. Participated in the 4th International Research Conference of the College of Humanities, 1-2 November 2018, University of Ghana. Legon.
  17. Presenter, Modernist architecture, building regulations, residents’ preferences and its implication on Ghana's energy use. A paper presented at the conference ‘Living and Sustainability: An Environmental Critique of Design and Building Practices, Locally and Globally’ Conference held on 9-10th February 2017 at London South Bank University
  18. Presenter, Climate change impact in an urban coastal community – Ga Mashie, (IDRC funded Climate Change Project). Presented at the Development and Climate days of the Conference of Parties (COP 23), 12-13 November 2017, Bonn, Germany.
  19. Presenter, Waste Management Challenges in Urban Ghana: Some Field Observations from the Techiman Township, Institute of African Studies Seminar Series, 13 October 2016.
  20. Presenter, Tradition-Modernity Conundrum as reflected in African Traditional Mud Houses in the Northern Region, Ghana. Institute of African Studies Seminar Series. 8 October 2015
  21. Presenter, Informal Social Networks as a Coping Strategy among Urban Low income Multihabited Households in Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA). Faculty of Science Conference, 17-18 November 2011. Great Hall, University of Ghana, Legon (part of my PhD studies).
  22. Presentation on Accra in ‘African Cities’, a graduate course in the University of Edinburgh. 3 February 2017
Workshops
  1. ‘Presentation (online) Title: Transitions in Traditional Earth Houses in Tamale, Ghana. In: ‘Urban Creativity in Africa’ Workshop. 14 November 2023, Lagos, Nigeria. African Hub for Sustainable Creative Economies. ARUA conference, Lagos.
  2. African Urbanities Project Summer Institute as part of the African Urbanism Project, Title: ‘Yesu Adom (God’s Grace)’ chop bar: liminal spaces within formal urban spaces? 22 September - 1 October 2023. University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.
  3. Presented a seminar at the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria. Title: Accra Airport City I: Exclusionary Space, Improvised Liminalities, Blurred Boundaries. 25 May 2023. South Africa.
  4. Resilient Resource Use’. 2-16 November 2020, Royal Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Development workshop. 
  5. ‘The Politics of Architecture in Africa’. A Workshop organised in collaboration with the Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS University of London, and the Department of Architecture, University of Johannesburg, 1 -7 December 2019 at Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa.
  6. Book project workshop on “Understanding Statehood through Architecture: A Comparative Study of Africa’s State Buildings (ASA)” led by Professor Julia Gallagher, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1-7 December 2019, South Africa
  7. Inaugural workshop for Andrew Mellon Urbanities project, University of Pretoria. 29 – 31 July 2019. South Africa.
  8. Participation in ‘World Monuments Day’, Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, 21 May 2019, Accra
  9. LIRA 2030 Training Workshop on Transdisciplinary Research, 1-8th September 2018, Hotel Etoile du Sud, Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast. Organised Centre Suisse de Recherchés Scientifiques.
  10. Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) Preparatory Bid Meeting Accra 22nd – 24th March 2016, British Council, Accra
  11. Knowledge Management Systems and Education for Building Smallholder Resilience to Climate Change, Presentation of a working group at a workshop organised by Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in Nairobi, Kenya, April 2014.
  12. Impact evaluation of energy efficient projects, International workshop held on 11-12 November 2013, La Palm Royal Beach Hotel

 

Teaching and Supervison
  • African Art, Its Philosophy and Criticism
  • Survey of African Art
  • Methodologies for constructing Art history in selected African societies
  • Historiography of African Art History
  • Contemporary African Art
  • African Urbanisms

 

Student Supervision

Ten graduate students (2016 – To date)