Logiche formali e processi urbani in Africa: il progetto del Campus Eduardo Mondlane a Maputo

African cities are growing in size by incorporat- ing the rural margins and neighbouring villag- es. Nevertheless, it happens at the cost of very strident conflicts between an urban morphology, which is still linked mainly to Western colonial models and a sort of “nebula” made of mixed- use cells and microcells scattered across the territory or mostly informally aggregated. On a total surface area of approximately 147,000 m2, Maputo (MZB) hosts the Eduardo Mondlane University, the leading national infrastructure for higher education. From a formal point of view, it constitutes the hinge between the city grid and the slums to the north. The Campus, however, is still largely incomplete and lacks the structures and services planned for the various departments at the time of the first urban pro- ject by the Portuguese-Mozambican architect José Forjaz. In the meantime, the construction within the Campus of the Confucius Cultural Center super island has changed the relations at all levels between the informal city and the colonial or- ganized one. The new master plan proposal, developed in the framework of joint Italian-Mo- zambican research, works in continuity with the previous plan but simultaneously seeks an urban balance and a spatial order between the newly built super island, the reticular city and the frag- mented fabric of spontaneous villages.