School of Built Environment & Development Studies

Claudia Loggia

Claudia Loggia

Associate Professor

Leadership Academic Leader: Housing & Planning

Discipline Housing, Planning

Emailloggia@ukzn.ac.za

Contact Number 031-260-3144

Campus Howard College Campus

Office Address Shepstone 8th floor, No. 840

Last Updated 5 months ago

Bio

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.

Degrees Held

  • Building Engineering, Cagliari University (Italy) 2003
  • PhD Building Engineering, Cagliari University (Italy), 2007  

Research Interests

  • Low-income & informal settlement upgrading programmes
  • Green building design and renovation;
  • Sustainable human settlements
  • Green infrastructure, smart cities & renewable energy sources integration

Teaching Interests

  • Housing Technology
  • Human Habitat/Sustainable Human Settlements
  • Construction Technology & drawing
  • Research methodology
  • Participatory research

Selected Publications

Community Involvement

  • (2016-2020), ISULABANTU project, Community-led upgrading for self-reliance in South Africa seeks to support communities by strengthening their capacity to guide urban development themselves. This project was 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. This collaborative project undertook data collection, capacity building and community mapping, in collaboration with residents, to feed into the creation of an integrated toolkit. http://www.isulabantu.org/
  • (2016-2022), Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellowship, Building Urban Resilience in African cities. This project, in partnership with Westminster University (London) is 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).
  • (2020-2022), uMngeni Resilience Project, as part of the Resilience Design Task team, we provided co-design of climate strengthened dwellings and interventions for rural houses in Nhlazuka area in KwaZulu-Natal. https://www.sanbi.org/biodiversity/science-into-policy-action/nie-adaptation-fund/umngeni-resilience-project/#:~:text=The%20project%20%E2%80%9CBuilding%20resilience%20in,agriculture%20and%20climate%20proofing%20settlements.
  • (2021-2023) Khan Rd settlement in Pietermaritzburg, informal settlement upgrading, participatory process to co-design sustainable dwellings and develop a community based disaster strategy to respond to hazards (floods, fire).

Teaching Expertise

  • Housing Technology (HOUS201, HOUS202)
  • Human Habitat (HOUS205)
  • Sustainable Human Settlements (HOUS306)
  • Construction Technology & construction drawing for Property Development program.
  • Research methodology (For Master in Housing)
  • Renovation and Conservation of Buildings (for Architecture and Building Engineering)

Student Supervision

I have successfully supervised (and co-supervised) a total of 43 postgraduate students (including 2 PhD) in the disciplines of Building Engineering, Architecture, Civil Engineering, Housing, Development Studies.