Tegamea.
Mathare, Kenya 2024.
With: Chen Xi Li
How can architecture create dignified, scalable, and sustainable living conditions in one of Nairobi’s most constrained informal settlements?
Tegamea.
Mathare, Kenya 2024.
With: Chen Xi Li
How can architecture create dignified, scalable, and sustainable living conditions in one of Nairobi’s most constrained informal settlements?
Tegamea.
Mathare, Kenya 2024.
With: Chen Xi Li
How can architecture create dignified, scalable, and sustainable living conditions in one of Nairobi’s most constrained informal settlements?
Tegamea.
Mathare, Kenya 2024.
With: Chen Xi Li
How can architecture create dignified, scalable, and sustainable living conditions in one of Nairobi’s most constrained informal settlements?
Mathare, one of Nairobi’s most densely populated informal settlements, houses 60% of the city’s population on just 5% of its land. Our project focuses on Mathare 4B. During a site visit, we spent time with the residents to understand their routines, frustrations, and aspirations. Collaborating with SDI (Slum Dwellers International) and the United Nations Office in Kenya, we integrated local and global insights.
Inspired by the Swahili term Tegemea (“to lean on”), our design employs an incremental housing strategy using Interlocking Compressed Earth Blocks. An ICEB infrastructure wall forms the community’s backbone, integrating utilities and evolving into residential units. The ground floor hosts rental spaces for shops and businesses. Public amenities like shared bathrooms, bike storage, and communal areas promote social interaction.
In our design, the core wall serves as the primary structural support for the units. These units vary in size, typically ranging from 5.6 to 5.4 meters in length and 4.4 meters in width. Concrete beams are integrated to support the upper floors, functioning both as structural reinforcements and spatial limitations for the units above and below. During construction, rebar is left exposed to facilitate the seamless addition of upper floors in subsequent phases.
On the ground floor, an open layout is maintained within to accommodate essential amenities such as public bathrooms (constructed in earlier phases), bike storage, and direct integration with the street level. Here we kept the existing commercial zone on our site and used our building to provide a commercial zone on one side of the ground floor. These spaces can be rented by the community, fostering local entrepreneurship and maintaining the vibrancy of the neighborhood.
For the residential units on the ground floor, a 1.5-meter buffer is provided that residents can use as private patio spaces or adapt according to their needs. Similarly, upper-floor units can use the same buffer to choose to have a balcony space or expand their units. In some cases, the core wall acts as a threshold, enabling units to be reconfigured or expanded to provide additional living space when necessary. Each floor has a public space which can be used for shared laundry space along the wall.
For the residential units on the ground floor, a 1.5-meter buffer is provided that residents can use as private patio spaces or adapt according to their needs. Similarly, upper-floor units can use the same buffer to choose to have a balcony space or expand their units. In some cases, the core wall acts as a threshold, enabling units to be reconfigured or expanded to provide additional living space when necessary. Each floor has a public space which can be used for shared laundry space along the wall.
