Co-Creating Homes: An Emphatic Approach to Slum Upgrading

Abuja, Nigeria’s fast-growing capital, is home to Garki Village, a prominent slum area. Often dismissed as an eyesore, it challenges conventional ideas of housing interventions. Maryam Abbakyari shows how empathy and co-creation with residents can transform slum upgrading from technical fixes into climate-responsive, culturally rooted solutions.

Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, is a city of contrasts. At its centre rise sleek glass towers – symbols of government power and rapid modernisation. Just beyond their shadows lies Garki Village, a settlement often dismissed by outsiders as an eyesore. To passersby, its improvised houses and congested alleys may signal failure. For residents, however, Garki is more than shelter: it is a community woven together by kinship, faith, and resourcefulness.

What is true for Garki is also true far beyond Abuja: across many cities in the Global South, slum communities are treated as problems to be cleared away rather than as homes to be understood. This perspective has shaped housing interventions for decades – with predictable failures. Too often, slum residents are cast as passive recipients of aid rather than as active authors of their own futures. The result is standardised housing schemes, stripped of cultural relevance, that are quickly abandoned or remodelled at great cost.

Co-Creating Solutions with Residents

Seen from the outside, corrugated iron sheets and narrow lanes may suggest neglect. Seen from within, however, they reveal people whose lives, aspirations, and resilience deserve to shape the future of housing. This insight guided my doctoral research in Garki Village, Abuja, where I applied the Empathic Design Method (EDM) to show how slum upgrading can move beyond technical fixes toward climate-responsive housing rooted in dignity, inclusion, and cultural identity. EDM is a participatory approach that begins with listening, suspends assumptions, and co-creates solutions with residents themselves.

Immersing myself in daily life in Garki village meant joining family gatherings, observing household routines, and conducting interviews and focus groups. We even invited children to draw their “dream homes” – a playful but revealing way to surface hidden aspirations.

Translating Community Narratives into Spatial Requirements

To make sense of these insights, I developed the Empathic Design Tool (ED-Tool) – a framework that translates community narratives into spatial requirements. For example, women’s emphasis on privacy translated into partitioned sleeping areas; children’s drawings highlighted the importance of open courtyards; and household interviews revealed the need for livelihood spaces within compounds.

Four priorities emerged consistently:

• Privacy-sensitive layouts – especially for women, in line with cultural and religious expectations.
• Communal courtyards – spaces where families can gather, cook, and share meals.
• Incremental flexibility – housing that can expand as incomes allow.
• Integrated livelihood spaces – for tailoring, cooking, or small trade, vital for survival.

These priorities were not secondary considerations or “extras.” They represented the very conditions for dignity, social cohesion, and resilience.

Co-designing with the Community

Using the ED-Tool as a guide, I worked with residents to co-design a modular housing prototype. Drawing on Nigeria’s vernacular traditions, the design incorporated shaded verandas, cross-ventilation, and a central courtyard that encouraged communal interaction while regulating indoor climate.

The process itself was iterative: each draft was returned to the community for critique and refinement. As one community leader observed, “This is the first time we see a plan that feels like ours.” The final 3D-rendered prototype illustrated how cultural values and climate-responsive techniques can merge into a viable, low-cost design. Unlike generic housing units, it reflected local realities and aspirations.

Why Empathy Matters

EDM is more than a design method; it is a political commitment to inclusion, shifting the role of the architect or planner from expert to facilitator. In a world where the UN projects that nearly 70% of the global population will live in cities by 2050, overlooking the socio-cultural dimensions of housing is not only inefficient but also unjust.

Communities like Garki village demonstrate that residents hold a deep understanding of what works in their own context. With empathy, this knowledge can be brought into the design process, bridging the gap between resilience on the ground and decisions made in the boardroom.

A Call for Action

If we want slum upgrading to succeed, housing policy and practice must:

• Embed socio-cultural research throughout the entire design process.
• Move from consultation to genuine co-creation with residents.
• Support flexible, incremental prototypes that can adapt to families’ evolving needs.
• Integrate gender and livelihood priorities into spatial planning.

Designing Homes, Not Just Housing

The lesson from Garki Village is clear: empathy is not an optional extra but a design imperative. Housing is not merely about walls and roofs; it is about creating spaces where people can live out their identities, nurture relationships, and pursue aspirations.

Designing with communities rather than for them, brings us closer to building homes that endure – not only in structure, but also in spirit.

The Sister Cities in Action project vividly illustrates this shift. Grounded in equality and mutual learning, its partnerships have transformed symbolic ties into dynamic spaces for continuous learning, innovation, and connection.

The value of these exchanges, among cities across four continents, each with its own contexts and challenges, amplifies the project’s impact. What is at stake is not just the deepening of a single tandem but the reimagining of city-to-city collaboration itself. If municipalities, citizens, civil society, and grassroots actors embrace this model, city partnerships can become powerful engines of solidarity, resilience, and inclusive urban change—bringing us closer to the cities we aspire to live in: locally rooted and globally connected.