Sayuni Bupe Mwamanenge

I am a doctoral student in the Housing Development and Management unit at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment.

My research focuses on Rethinking of inclusive built environment for inclusive public primary schools in hot climate zones (case of Tanzania)

While many countries are committed to adopting inclusive education, imlementing a proper inclusive built environment for effective inclusive education has not been very feasible due to some challenges like most inclusive schools focusing on a few special educational needs learners hence the built environment never really supports all learners from not only disabled and special needs but also marginalized and vulnerable groups hence causing many of the children to be stigmatized and rarely encouraged to join school.

The aim of the study is to gain a better understanding of the inclusive built environment and to propose better design guidelines for inclusive built environment in public primary schools. The 4 key areas the research aims to look at are:

1. Understanding the categories of different groups of special educational need learners (special needs, disabled and marginalized groups).
2. The built-environment of the school (accessiblity to the school, universal design, safety and comfort, classroom adaptability, spatial inclusion)
3. Psychological effects of the targeted users (users feeling and reactions,sense of belonging, stress and anxiety, engagement, resilience and motivation.
4. Impact of hot climate on the built environment and the users (Thermal comfort, materials etc)