Featured Projects
All Saints Church, Lweza
The All Saints Chapel is a double height concrete block structure. The design considerations are closely aligned with religious traditions of creating sacred spaces without distractions to elevate a life of prayer and religious devotion. The church is a long, narrow, and single pitched volume with concrete columns adopted to carry the roof structure, allowing room for extended eaves that shade the envelope. The design carefully responds to the project’s local context, including material, climate, and culture. A lightweight, secondary tropical roof hovers above the chapel, shading and protecting the building, but also used for collecting rainwater. The design makes use of concrete blocks which have good thermal and acoustic properties that are key for a sacred space. The building is passively ventilated, with crossventilation, reflective roofing material, shaded windows and extending overhangs. This ensures a comfortable indoor climate throughout the year. The landscape design of this project forms simple, contemplative spaces which facilitate the life of meditation and reflection needed by believers. The gardens are purely intended for creating serene spaces and, as well, enhance the micro climate of the site. Pavement is minimal in favor of lawns within the landscape to minimise the urban heat island effect.
Train Up a Child, Najjanankumbi
Train up a child is a primary school whose classrooms are arranged around a central courtyard, with the spaces linearly shaped and characterised by warm, natural, reflective playful and inspiring colors. The reflective ability helps minimise heat gain and as well, distribute daylight to deeper parts of the spaces. Hollow concrete blocks, were used as they have good acoustic properties, which is key for conducive learning spaces, on top of achieving a light weight structure. Large operable glass windows are aligned on either side of the classrooms to allow for daylight reception to achieve visual comfort and the building is completely dependent on passive ventilation to achieve indoor thermal comfort. A combination of thermal mass and building orientation used to minimise direct ingress of the sun has proven to be an effective passive strategy to avoid overheating without deploying high-tech energy-intensive equipment
Commercial Block, Kirinya
Located in the bustling trading center of Kirinya, this development is designed to catalyse urban regeneration with a mixed use scheme that cleverly provides for retail on prime ground level, and affordable rental units at the back. The front elevation features a striking sculptural wall that draws attention to the interiors behind, while hinting at references of the upcoming port developments in the area.
Kiremire Apartments, Kikoni
The proposal includes 9 apartment blocks, a swimming pool, swimming pool house, a club house, and parking lots. The structures are oriented along the slope to minimise excavation and impact less on the ground. The site is punctuated with green parks to balance with the built scape and reduce urban heat island effects. A jogging track running against the slope in the north, is proposed to enhance physical exercise amongst the occupants and, as well, provides opportunity for socialisation among the residents. The apartments include two bedroom and three bedroom units for bigger families. The open floor layout within the public spaces (lounge, dining and kitchen) breaks away from the traditional victorian style which allows for good air flow through these spaces, improved daylight distribution and allows for activities to flow freely within these spaces. Material-wise, the design makes use of bricks as a primary material—-following the idea of creating healthy buildings and creating an envelope that responds to the local climate. Brick has the needed properties to counter the ever changing external conditions that would hinder the interior thermal comfort for the users, besides, It’s ability to age well,
Lugala Rentals
Many today resort to small rental units with 2 or 3 bedrooms in order to make some extra income. The projects above demonstrate a combination of low-cost construction while creating an appealing layout for tenants.
