Entomological Happenings: Exploring Collaborative Design Solutions for Sustainable Mosquito Control

Mosquito-borne diseases represent one of the most dynamic frontiers of public health research and intervention. Climate change, population growth, rapid urbanisation and insecticide resistance are amplifying the global risk of pathogen-carrying mosquitoes. This project explores a reconfiguration of knowledges and disciplinary skills to meet this ever-evolving challenge and, in the process, develop new modalities of spatial design thinking under conditions of material precarity. Bringing together international and local entomologists, architects, social scientists, public health specialists, engineers and artists, the project will model novel strategies to tackle the wicked problem of mosquito control in Tanzania and Brazil. The team draws upon long-term interdisciplinary collaborations in these two countries and award-winning work in sustainable design to formulate integrative methodologies and operational frameworks for community-driven innovation. Through a series of ‘entomological happenings’, the researchers will design and build prototypes to help address the fraught connections between disease risk, makeshift housing and urban water management.