Designing 'Dream Houses' in the fringe of development: occupants' perception of low-cost housing in Luanda's urban periphery

This paper explores issues associated with perceptions of low-cost housing in Luanda, which despite being considered one of the fastest developing and more prospective growing cities in Africa, is struggling to cope with a growing population putting extra pressure on an already saturated urban infrastructure. A renewed Luanda is taking shape, whilst the periphery is being gradually populated with thousands of new houses destined to the low-income population, absorbing some of the people displaced from informal settlements (musseques) but also open to those who would not otherwise be able to afford living closer to Luanda's centre. Amongst promises of fulfilment of a "dream" of ownership and adequate living conditions, this research investigates the low-cost housing sector of Luanda as experienced and perceived by the inhabitants/occupants themselves. Using a Participatory Post-Occupancy (PPOA) framework, it combines the technical arrangement of a building appraisal tool with a participatory approach intending to provide an accurate insight into the occupants' satisfaction and the performance of low-cost housing in an informal settlement as well as in a newly built low-cost mass housing development located in the outskirts of Luanda.