School of Built Environment & Development Studies

Prof Claudia Loggia is Associate Professor in Housing and Academic Leader for Housing and Planning at the School of Built Environment & Development Studies (SoBEDS), University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. She holds a PhD in Building Engineering and a MEng from Cagliari University (Italy). She has extensive experience in trans-disciplinary research projects and consultancy work in the areas of: energy efficient building design and retrofit, green infrastructure, sustainable urban regeneration, informal settlements upgrading. Since 2016, Claudia is a Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellow (2016-2022), for a project in partnership with the University of Westminster (London), titled: “Building Urban Resilience for Self-Reliance in African Cities”.  She was also Principal Investigator for the South African team of the ISULABANTU project (www.isulabantu.org ) focused on Community-led Upgrading for self-reliance in informal settlements in South Africa. This project is a 3-year ESRC/NRF Urban Transformation in SA Grant in partnership with the University of Westminster, University College London, the eThekwini Municipality and a local NGO called uTshani Fund. Both of these collaborative projects are providing opportunities for community engagement (fieldwork, community events), training (in-field community training) and capacity building (in the areas of project management, construction management, and environmental management). She is also collaborating on valuable research projects in South Africa with local governmental institutions, NGOs and local communities, such as the uMngeni Resilience Project aimed at increasing resilience of vulnerable communities in a rural area in KwaZulu-Natal and the informal settlement upgrading of Khan Rd settlement in Pietermaritzburg. Since 2012, she is a Green Star South Africa Accredited Professional with the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) and more recently, in 2022, she became an NRF C-rated researcher.