SGT Studio'25: Students explore sustainable and affordable housing solutions in Senegal

Project focus: Addressing Senegal’s housing deficit

Senegal is currently facing a housing shortfall exceeding 300,000 units. With increasing demand and limited affordable housing options, often built with carbon-intensive materials such as concrete, the need for sustainable alternatives is urgent. In urban areas, housing affordability and environmental resilience are key concerns.

Guided by the mentoring teacher Dr. Helena Sandman, the team of four master’s students, Alessio Chiaradia, Daniel Gog-Ciceu, Sofia Pascolo, and Gloria Vösu, brought together diverse expertise in architecture, design, urban planning, and business, enriching both the fieldwork and the collaborative process.

Field study and local collaboration

Over the course of a 15-day field trip to Senegal, the team actively engaged and collaborated with a wide range of stakeholders, including construction companies, NGOs, and governmental agencies. Field study activities included interviews, workshops, neighborhood and house visits. These were conducted across several locations: Dakar, Saly, Saint-Louis, Thiès, and Gandiol. The aim was to gain a broader understanding of the housing context and to engage with stakeholders operating in different regional and urban environments.

The team studied housing practices, construction methods, and innovative financing approaches across different urban and regional contexts. Special emphasis was placed on learning from local stakeholders about sustainable construction materials, particularly clay, and community-based development practices.

Field trip key takeaway and final proposal

The field trip highlighted a crucial insight: supporting affordable and sustainable housing in Senegal requires not only developing new solutions but also sharing, connecting, and scaling existing ones.

In response to this, the team’s final proposal includes Brick by Brick, a knowledge-sharing platform designed to connect and share ongoing efforts in sustainable housing. Each existing innovative initiative or approach represents a “brick”, valuable on its own, but much more powerful when connected to the others, shifting from isolated parts to an integrated whole.

The platform serves as a library of accumulated knowledge from multiple stakeholders on topics such as sustainable materials, financing solutions, climate-resilient building methods, and other educational resources. Brick by Brick fosters a bottom-up, community approach, empowering stakeholders to share their insights and expertise directly on the platform while also discovering other innovative strategies. The platform is designed to be open, interactive, and continuously evolving as new initiatives and projects emerge and are added.

Brick by Brick is a key component of the broader proposal developed by the SGT Senegal 2025 aimed at advancing Senegal’s clay construction industry to support the goal of affordable and sustainable housing. The proposal focuses on two closely interconnected strategic areas:

1. Education and Training: Support capacity building through open access to sustainable construction knowledge and training materials.
2. Sustainable Neighborhoods: Promote community-driven housing projects that apply sustainable construction practices.

Further details on the proposal can be found on the Brick by Brick knowledge-sharing platform, under the section SGT Senegal 2025 Team Proposal.

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This work was completed as a study project as part of the Sustainable Global Technologies (SGT) Studio course at Aalto in 2025.

Follow the Aalto SGT Senegal team and the SGT course on Instagram: @senegal_team_sgt and @aalto_sgt