Roots, Kigali

Shaping African Urbanities

How can we design urban imaginaries, rooted in Kigali’s neighborhoods, wetlands and peoples’ socio-cultural practices, ecologic networks, and digital infrastructures, promoting economic prosperity, considering the right to dwelling, and wellbeing for all inhabitants?

The city’s unique urban condition of densely populated hillsides and continuous agri-wetland valley systems challenge us to re-evaluate sustainable cities, large- scale investor-driven development schemes, and urban expansion models promising progress and wealth. The pressures of growing inequality, migration, and climate crisis radically heighten the value of water, soil, and conflictual land use at micro and macro-scale.

'Leaving no one behind' and respecting the diverse needs of a modern urban and peri -urban-rural agri- society, the necessity to capitalize on locally available resources, build circular systems, generate new centralities, providing connected recreational and productive open space, whilst protecting and balancing regenerative ecologies is at stake.

Students will address Kigali’s rapid urban growth and environmental challenges, developing a Social Health Center. Process-driven, prototypical multi-scalar project interventions, can connect landscape, planning, urban design, and architecture. We will engage with central and peripheral natural-urban frontiers addressing health, education, placemaking, promoting social inclusion, resilient communities, and circular development, accounting for the SDG’s.

In a cross-cultural exchange with students of the University of Rwanda’s School of Architecture and the Built Environment (SABE) and the Department of Architecture, the studio engages in the discourse of `The Green City Kigali` and alternative urban imaginaries.