Urban morphology, urban transformations and conservation in Maputo, Mozambique. Lessons learnt and transfer of knowledge to other regions. lessons learnt and transfer of knowledge to other regions.

This paper draws on the research programme Home Space in the African City (www.homespace.dk) and aims at providing insights to the development of African cities with an emphasis on planning and housing, based on in-depth empirical data from Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.

The Home Space concept was developed in order to record the spaces within which the majority of African urban residents dwell - dwelling being both a material place, an identity, an investment and a process. The unit of analysis was the land, the plot on which people reside regardless whether being planned or unplanned, formal or informal.

The notion of home is a relational concept, which reflects the embedded sense of belonging to a certain space. Home is material and imagined and the concept embeds relationships between imagined ideals and specific physical spaces. Home is somewhere in particular; a place invested with meaning through lived experience and culturally defined practices. The analysis of home making processes in Maputo documents how this sense of belonging is created and the research focus on the relationship between the material, symbolic and imagined home.

A house turns into a home through inhabitation which involves feelings of security (physical and legal), concepts of family and social networks, relation to neighbourhood and how objects and spaces are invested with symbolic meanings. The study argues that the Maputo peri-urban inhabitants are acting as the de facto city makers with limited, if any, assistance from the state and/or the private sector. Understanding Home Space making is hence key to understanding how Sub-Saharan African cities continuously expand and transform themselves.