Architecture Reviving Lost Societies

ARCRH I T E C T U R E EVI VI NG L OSTSOCI ET I ES

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t oonebi l l i onand mor e. . .

L OSTSOCI ET I ES Whenwes t er ni z at i onwasi mpor t edt oAf r i cancount r i es ,t he hi ddens i deofmoder ni s m wasmer el ymat er i al i s ti nt er es t s .

T her ef or e,col oni al i s m adopt ed a conceptofdomi nat i on: i mpos i t i onofi ncomi ngnew cul t ur eovert r adi t i onalcul t ur al val uesatanycos t .

SECTION A

PROBLEM STATEMENT The effects of colonialism past and present are visible in most African countries. Even though the African man formed the oldest cultural and social settlement in human history dating back 195,000 years; modern day colonialism has torn Africans away from their past and dumbfounded them by a cultural invasion that marginalizes their own culture. The African is today the deformed image of others.

In this research, through a sustainable contextual design methodology, I will form a living architectural layout that revives lost cultural habits and sacred rituals in Vihiga, Kenya as opposed to the current poorly implemented western building designs and layouts. The final project will address a selected community center design with an emphasis on its relationship to semi-public and public spaces utilizing local labor, materials, and ancient craftsman skills.

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Kenya (/ˈkɛnjə/ or /ˈkiːnjə/), officially the Republic of Kenya, is known as a part of the Great Rift Valley. Its capital and largest city is Nairobi. Kenya lies on the equator with the Indian Ocean to the south-east, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, South Sudan to the north west, Ethiopia to the north and Somalia to the northeast (Sayre, 2009). Kenya covers 581,309 km2 (224,445 square miles), and had a population of approximately 44 million people in July 2012. The official languages are English and Kiswahili (or Swahili). Swahili, which comes from the Arabic word meaning "coast," is a mix of Arabic and the African language Bantu (2009 census).

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I. COLONIALISM IN KENYA Pre-Colonial History | The Great Rift Valley is thought to be one of the places where human beings originated, and archeologists working in the valley have found remains of what they speculate are some of the earliest human ancestors. The first known inhabitants of presentday Kenya were Cushitic-speaking tribes that migrated to the northwest region from Ethiopia around 2000 B.C.E. Eastern Cushites began to arrive about one thousand years later, and occupied much of the country's current area. During the period from 500 B.C.E. to 500 C.E., other tribes arrived from various parts of Africa. Tribal disagreements often led to war during this time. In the 900s, Arab merchants arrived and established trading centers along the coast of East Africa. Over the ensuing eight centuries, they succeeded in converting many Kenyans to Islam. Some Arabs settled in the area and intermarried with local groups.

The Europeans | Evolving from a mixture of Bantu and Arabic, the Swahili language then developed as a lingua franca for trade between the different peoples. When the Portuguese arrived in 1498, the Arab dominance on the coast was clipped, as the Port of Mombasa became an important resupply stop for ships bound for the Far East. The Portuguese in turn gave way to Islamic control under the Imam of Oman in the 1600s until another European influence came along, this time from the United Kingdom during the 19th century.

Colonial History | Britain gradually increased its domain in the region, and in 1884–1885, Kenya was named a British protectorate by the Congress of Berlin, which divided the African continent among various European powers. The British constructed the Uganda Railway, which connected the ports on Kenya's coast to landlocked Uganda. The increasing economic opportunities brought thousands of British settlers who displaced many Africans, often forcing them to live on reservations. The Africans resisted—the Kikuyu in particular put up a strong fight—but they were defeated by the superior military power of the British (Embassy of the Republic of Kenya, 2014).

Emergence of the Nation | During the early twentieth century, the British colonizers forced the Africans to work their farms in virtual slavery, and kept the upper hand by making it illegal for the Kenyans to grow their own food. In 1942, members of the Kikuyu, Embu, Meru and Kamba tribes took an oath of unity and secrecy to fight for freedom from British rule. The Mau Mau Movement began with that oath and Kenya embarked on its long hard road to National Sovereignty. Kenya finally gained independence on December 12, 1963. The following year, Kenya became a Republic with Kenyatta as its first President. In the same year Kenya joined the British Commonwealth. Even though Kenya gained its independence, the scars of the British colonial invasion still remain (Elanor Stanford, 2010).

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II. CULTURAL INVASION While Western civilization has precariously contaminated the traditional values and culture of Africa, it remains a fact that the Great Rift Valley region had established, well before the advent of colonialism, a pattern of home-grown political systems, governance process and generally acceptable institutional rule-making arrangement, such that there was progression in the pace of civilization of Africa and self-styled tempo of technological development.

Furthermore, the dynamism and significance of Kenya on the global continuum tends to support the argument that without the retrogressive contact with imperial forces, Kenya would have evolved and sustained an advanced level of development and modern civilization of their own.

With Kenya subjugated and dominated, the Western culture and European mode of civilization began to thrive and outgrow Vihiga’s cultural heritage. Western culture now is regarded as frontline civilization. African ways of doing things became primitive, archaic and regrettably unacceptable in public domain. Not only were certain aspects of the material culture in the colonies lost or destroyed, colonial societies also lost the power and sense of cultural continuity, such that it became practically impossible to recover the ability to strive for cultural progress on their own terms. As argued by a scholar: The social fabric was completely devastated and a new culture of violence was implanted. Traditional African systems of conflict resolution were destroyed and, in their places, nothing was given. The democratic process, rudimentary though it was, but with great potential as accompanies every human

institution, was

brutally

uprooted

and

replaced

by

the

authoritarianism of colonialism. A new crop of elites was created, nurtured, and weaned on the altar of violence and colonialism armed with the structures of the modern state to continue to carry out the art and act of subjugation of the mass of the people in the service of colonialism (Mimiko, 2010:641-42).

The above assertion was corroborated by Kasongo (2010:314) when he submits that “one could infer that when westernization was imported to African countries, the hidden side of modernism was materialist interests. Civilization was just another concept of domination: imposition of incoming new culture over traditional cultural values�. It is important to emphasize fundamentally that urgent and more decisive steps need to be taken in order to reorder and reverse this evanescent trend of cultural emptiness, without which Africa may experience seasons of cultural extinction and drought of African values.

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SECTION B

AUDIENCE In 2014, I joined Serve a Village

(a Volunteer Organization with current 501(c) (3) status)

in an effort to support sustainable projects that help improving the health, education, welfare and environment of needy communities throughout the world. Since then, I have made it my goal to dedicate my time, effort, and energy to utilize the knowledge acquired through my architectural studies at the Catholic University of America and my experience in cultural studies to improve the way of living in the countries where it is most needed.

In summer 2015, my initial thesis research inspired Serve a Village to launch a campaign to support the Kigima Resource Center in Vihiga, Kenya, as well as coordinate a research trip that allowed me to test a contextual methodology in Vihiga over the period of (5) weeks.

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Vihiga County borders Nandi County to the east, Kakamega County to the north, Siaya County to the west, and Kisumu County to the south. The County is made up of five constituencies / districts namely Luanda, Emuhaya, Hamisi, Sabatia, and Vihiga district where the project is located. The county has a population of 554,622 [1] (2009 census) and an area of 563 km². The equator cuts across the southern part of the county.

The county is located on the western region of Kenya, in the Lake Victoria Basin. Its altitude ranges between 1,300 m and 1,800 m above sea level and slopes gently from west to east. Generally the county has undulating hills and valleys with streams flowing from northeast to southwest and draining into Lake Victoria.

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I.

DEMOGRAPHIC FEATURES According to the 2009 National Population and Housing Census, Vihiga County had a population of 554,622, with a population density of 1044 persons per square km, one of the highest in the country. 47.8 % of the population were male while 52.2% were female. The county population is estimated to have grown to 572,577 persons in 2012 and is projected to grow to 603,856 persons in 2017 (KNBS 2013). Table 3 below shows population projections by age cohort.

Age Group

Census 2009

Projections 2012

Projections 2015

M

F

T

M

F

T

M

F

T

0-4

43,398

42,941

86,339

44,806

44,329

89,135

46,258

45,766

92,024

5-9

42,250

41,239

83,489

43,612

42,582

86,194

45,026

43,962

88,988

10-14

38,164

38,961

77,125

39,408

40,231

79,639

40,686

41,535

82,221

15-19

31,384

31,550

62,934

32,411

32,577

64,988

33,462

33,633

67,095

20-24

17,840

23,311

41,151

18,416

24,078

42,494

19,013

24,859

43,872

25-29

13,551

18,384

31,935

13,995

18,985

32,980

14,449

19,601

34,050

30-34

12,051

15,823

27,874

12,449

16,333

28,782

12,853

16,863

29,716

35-39

10,575

13,219

23,794

10,930

13,651

24,581

11,285

14,095

25,380

40-44

8,825

11,322

20,147

9,113

11,693

20,806

9,408

12,072

21,480

45-49

8,096

11,004

19,100

8,354

11,361

19,715

8,624

11,729

20,353

50-54

7,738

10,152

17,890

8,001

10,487

18,488

8,260

10,827

19,087

55-59

7,310

8,526

15,836

7,540

8,800

16,340

7,784

9,084

16,868

60-64

6,296

6,938

13,234

6,509

7,172

13,681

6,720

7,405

14,125

65-69

4,585

5,551

10,136

4,747

5,726

10,473

4,901

5,911

10,812

70-74

4,095

4,926

9,021

4,258

5,095

9,353

4,396

5,258

9,654

75-79

2,991

3,353

6,344

3,119

3,495

6,614

3,220

3,609

6,829

80+

3,549

4,706

8,255

3,553

4,761

8,314

3,668

4,916

8,584

Total

262,71

291,906

554,622

271,221

301,356

572,57

280,01

311,125

591,138

These projections are based on a projected population growth rate of 1.1 per cent per annum. The growth rate has negatively impacted the available resources. Affected resources include land, forests and wetlands. The county demographic profile depicts a youthful population comprising of 46 per cent of persons aged below 15 years. This means

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that a lot of resources will have to be allocated towards education, health, and youth programs guided towards a sustainable human development.

II.

EMPLOYMENT According to Vihiga County Integrated Development Plan, most wage earners in the county are in agriculture and rural development sector, mainly involved in crop farming which includes tea and coffee as the main cash crops, maize, and beans as well as livestock production. Agriculture provides 70% of employment opportunities.

The urban self-employed comprise 4 per cent of the total labor force. While 34 per cent of labor force is rural based. Most people in the rural areas are self-employed and engaged in small scale businesses operating kiosks selling grocery, food, small hotels, and undertaking small scale farming. The urban self-employment includes those in businesses like shop keeping, hotels, chemists, hair dressing, foodstuff trade, and cottage industry. a. Labor Force The County’s total labor force (15-64) years were 282,761 which represent 49 per cent of the total population in 2012. The composition of this labor force was 55 per cent (155,092) female and 45 per cent (127,669) male. The labor participation rate for population aged 15-64 years is 81.9 per cent while the percentage of economically active population in wage employment is 29.2 per cent. The total employed population is 118,893. b. Unemployment Levels The number of unemployed people is over 65 per cent while the economically inactive are 55 per cent. Youth unemployment has worsened with the diminishing opportunities for formal employments. This has led to high dependency ratio and inability of the few employed to save and invest. Cases of insecurity associated with youth unemployment are also on the rise. In this regard, more opportunities need to be created with a view of addressing the unemployment problem.

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III.

PROJECT SOCIAL MERIT The project is funded and carried out by Serve a Village (a locally active NGO that seeks to coordinate environmental and cultural endeavors) at the request of villagers. Major financial and land donations were made by volunteers as well as financially capable people in Vihiga.

In fact, the land itself was donated by an older member of the

community. Material suppliers are screened for fair labor practices and support of historically disadvantaged persons. The project was planned with the participation of community stakeholders in workshop sessions and discussions to determine the requirements and expectations for both residential and public phases. Their involvement was important because previous projects that were imposed without community consultation met with both overt and passive resistance. The stakeholder groups included Vihiga volunteers, trustees, two city officials, local councilors, Rotary Club members, and many local workers, skilled and unskilled.

IV.

PROJECT SOCIOECONOMIC BENEFITS Vihiga’s mission to redress social inequity will be central to the design approach. The public space will consist of an environmental community educational and cultural center that seeks to fight poverty in a holistic and sustainable way by establishing self-sufficiency and gradually integrating the poor into the broader economy, culture, and society. This requires extensive effort and multiple measures because the mechanisms that perpetuate poverty are intertwined and deeply rooted. The capacity of a single building or small NGO to effect change is limited, but my field visit had shown that the people are dedicated and making progress – one person or one family at a time. Establishing self-sufficiency and social equality among the poor requires education, marketable skills, employment, resources, markets, and a humane physical environment. The project will be designed to provide all these assets to the greatest extent possible, especially to empower people during the construction phase and beyond.

The socioeconomic development that Vihiga seeks and the project advances will take decades to realize. The steps can be roughly outlined as follows: a. Sustenance A vegetable garden and orchard are to be planted on the public space site, providing food for fifty very poor families. The demonstration garden is used in the

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program to teach local families how to establish and maintain their own organic vegetable gardens and productively use domestic land. Under the project, fifty fruit trees for public benefit will be planted in the neighborhood. b. Education and training The construction methods proposed for the project are highly labor intensive, chosen in order to teach people, use and develop local skills, and build local knowledge. As many local people as possible will be hired as construction workers and trained on site. Construction techniques are to be regularly explained and demonstrated. A scale model of the building will be used to explain the construction principles. Daily meetings will be held, and workers will be encouraged to propose ways of handling particular tasks. Thus, the workers will not only learn trade skills, but how to think, design and build for themselves in a practicable way. c. Resource development Besides teaching skills, the project places resources in the hands of the people by establishing local sources of materials such as wood and waste. Trees are an economical and renewable source of wood. New trees are planned in the neighborhood for use by the community, establishing suburban forestry. Each tree is to be coppiced and to produce a new pole every five years. A yard for recovering demolition materials will be created in the neighborhood, establishing another valuable and plentiful resource. Materials collected will include brick, scrap metal, roofing, stone, and wood. d. Producing, not buying To promote local self-sufficiency, I will engage local workers and businesses as much as possible rather than to import industrialized building materials. The benefits are twofold: (1) as much money as possible is injected into the local economy in the form of wages, and (2) once local skills and resources are established, people can begin producing instead of buying, and a local economy can emerge.

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SECTION C

METHODOLOGY The research will adopt a Contextual Design Methodology to structure a welldefined user-centered design process that provides methods to collect data about users in the field, use the data to create and prototype product and service concepts, and iteratively test and refine those concepts with users.

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I. PLACE The selected site is donated by a community elder to the registered trustees of Vihiga Muslim Community. The initial registered donated area is 0.04 hectares (approximately 4,300 square feet). However; the owner has agreed to donate up to 0.3 hectares (approximately 32,300 square feet) considering the socioeconomic benefits of the project.

The site is located on the eastern part of the Rift Valley. Generally, the county has undulating hills and valleys with streams flowing from northeast to southwest and draining into Lake Victoria. There are two main rivers, Yala and Esalwa, which drain into Lake Victoria. One of which runs less than 250 feet away from the property line.

The soil is mainly sedimentary in nature. The soil supports various farming activities which include cash crops like tea and coffee. The abundant rain in the county enables rearing of livestock, crop farming, fruits and other horticultural crops vital for sustainability of agro based industries. The types of soil and climate favor two planting seasons in the year.

During long rains, crops such as maize, sweet potatoes, sorghum and beans are grown for subsistence use in most parts of the county. a. Climate Analysis The county experience high equatorial climate with well distributed rainfall throughout the year with an average annual precipitation of 1900 mm. The rainfall ranges from 1800 – 2000mm. Temperatures range between 14ºC - 32ºC, with a mean of 23ºC. Long rains are experienced in the months of March, April and May which are wettest while short rains are experienced in the months of September, October and November. The driest and hottest months are December, January and February with an average humidity of 41.75 %. This climate supports a variety of crop farming such as coffee, tea, and horticultural crops and rearing of livestock.

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b. Water and Sanitation The water sub-sector promotes and supports the integrated water resource management and development approach towards enhancing water availability and accessibility. Households with access to piped water comprise 2.7 per cent whereas 64 per cent of the households are served with protected springs and 25.3 per cent are served with unprotected springs. 

Water supply schemes There are 20 piped water supply schemes within the county some of which are operational while others are under rehabilitation. The major water schemes are Mbale, Maseno, Ebunagwe, Kaimosi and Sosiani water schemes.



Water sources The average distance to the nearest water point is about 0.5 Km. The proportion of households with roof catchment systems stands at 8 per cent.

With an unpredictable rainfall pattern, efforts need to be made to increase the number of households with roof catchments to tap rain water.



Sanitation Most rural households in the county have pit latrines. However, 77.9 per cent of the pit latrines are uncovered while only 22.1 per cent are covered. The county lacks a waste disposal, sewerage and effluent management system. Most public and private premises rely on septic tanks. According to the county, lagoons will be established in major towns of Mbale and Luanda. The County government also plans to purchase exhausters to serve the individual households.

Roof catchment system

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c. Infrastructure and Access Information regarding infrastructure and access was obtained from Vihiga County Integrated Development Plan as well as a personal interview with Senator Paul Njoroge. 

Road and Rail Network The road network in the area is in poor condition. Except for a few main paved roads, it is mostly dirt roads that require routine maintenance. The county’s total road network in length is 1,058.2 Km. Paved roads make up 16.6 per cent of the total road network. Bitumen surface covers a length of 201.5 Km, gravel surface 373.7 Km, and earth surface 483 Km. The County has a rail length of 20 Km and has one railway station at Luanda. However, rail services stopped several years ago. The county has no airstrip and relies on the neighboring counties for flight services.

Earth Roads Gravel Roads

Bitumen Surface Paved Roads



Posts and Telecommunications Vihiga County is served with 23 post/sub-post offices and four private couriers, spread across the county. The major post offices are located in Mbale and Luanda Towns. The mobile telephone network coverage is poor and stands at 60 per cent. The County’s terrain characterized by hills and valleys has influenced telecommunications network in the region.

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

Financial Institutions The county has five (5) commercial banks namely Kenya Commercial Bank, Equity Bank, Cooperative Bank, Post Bank and Barclays Bank. There are also micro-finance institutions namely, Kenya Women Finance Trust, FOSA, Bunyore Financial Services Association and Platinum Credit and one village bank by the name Khaviem village bank. Most of these institutions are concentrated in urban centers and large markets centers. Despite the large number of financial institutions, access to credit is still a major challenge as the rate of interest charged remains high. The major beneficiaries of credit from micro finance institutions are the women and youths who are organized in groups undertaking various income generating activities.



Education Institutions There are only 60 Adult learning centers and 6 tertiary colleges in the whole county. Most colleges are for teachers. Among the public colleges are Kaimosi Teachers Training College and Friends Kaimosi Institute of Technology. Private colleges include Vihiga Teachers College, St Joseph’s Teachers College and Goibei Teachers College. The county government plans to establish a medical training college in the county to meet the growing demand for heath personnel. There are 16 youth polytechnics across the county. However, enrolment in these polytechnics has been extremely low.



Energy Access The county suffers from the lack of electricity. Urban household access to electricity is 10.8 per cent whereas the rural household access to electricity is 5.3 per cent. The main source of cooking fuel is firewood which accounts for 84.8 per cent of total cooking fuel whereas the main source of lighting fuel is paraffin accounting for 88.7 per cent of total population.



Current Housing Types Housing in the county is mainly characterized by type of walling, floor and roof materials. Mud/wood walled houses comprise of 74.8 per cent of households while 71.3 per cent of houses are made of earth floors and 94.2

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per cent households have corrugated iron sheets roofs. The predominant flooring materials used by most households in the county are earth, mud, dung, and sand, as well as a share of cement and tiles. The county government intends to outline a housing policy to reduce sprawling of slums in urban centers. The government seeks to partner with development partners to construct low cost modern houses in the urban centers to minimize the mushrooming slums. There is no proposed plan for addressing the housing issues in the village and rural areas.

Existing housing with corrugated sheets roofing and mud walls.

Existing primary school

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d. Land and Land Use The average farm size in the county is 0.4 hectares for small scale farming and 3 hectares for large scale. The fertile land in Sabatia, Hamisi and Emuhaya Constituencies coupled with abundant rains has influenced the dense settlement.

The high concentration of population is witnessed even in the rocky areas such as Maragoli hills and the flat swampy parts of Luanda.

In terms of land use, 98.7per cent of the land is under farming, mostly subsistence, while 1.3 per cent is under housing. The main land use types include livestock, crop farming, tree planting fish farming and settlements. Other land use activities are soil mining for brick making and pot making as well as house construction. Sand and stone harvesting are other activities for which land is put to use. The increase in settlement areas reduces available arable land for livelihood activities. Most of these activities are undertaken in rural areas where the majority live.



Percentage of Land Owners with Title Deeds Proportion of parcels whose owners have title deeds is 28.3 per cent while the rest is still under the ownership of grandparents. Women ownership of land titles is also low due to cultural barriers. This has made it very difficult for those who would like to access credit from financial institutions for investment due to lack of collateral. Most people are left to invest their little funds which, in most cases, are in form of grants and donations that cannot meet their development aspirations. This is even made worse by the high poverty situation. The high population density in the county has also led further sub divisions of land into uneconomical parcels.



Incidence of Landlessness Most people in the county own land.

However, 3 per cent of the total population is landless. Some of the landless have invaded Maragoli and Kibiri Forests for settlement.

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Donated Land Title Deed

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e. Construction Methodology The design will adopt a sustainable approach to design and construction; I call it a “sustainable construction methodology” as a part of an overall contextual methodology.

It treats the built environment as part of a cyclical process of regeneration rather than as a consumer of materials. This innovative methodology is simple enough to be understood by users and observers. The methodology produces local benefits by systematically applying environmental, socioeconomic, cost-management, and technical principles such as using waste and renewable materials, minimizing CO2 emissions, conserving energy, and using local resources. Through an iterative process, the methodology considers all phases of the life cycle of a building. A palette of materials and a language of forms emerge that suit the local cultural, technical, and environmental context.

The project will be designed so that local people can repair and maintain it using locally grown materials. Like natural systems, principles of sustainability reinforce each other – or synergize. For instance, the use of local waste and renewable materials simultaneously reduces resource consumption, saves energy, generates less greenhouse gas, and generates local jobs.

From this approach evolves an ethic: (1) operate locally – make full use of the site and locality in every respect, and draw on immediate surroundings before looking beyond, (2) prefer craftsmanship to mechanization, and (3) prefer natural materials to processed ones. This ethic is practicable and most beneficial where unemployment is high, income is low, labor rates are low, or resources are plentiful. f.

Building Materials Central to the methodology economy and resourcefulness in the use of materials and construction methods.

Earth bags and mud | are the main materials to be used for the residential project walls because of their availability and ease of use.

Rammed earth and earth blocks | will be utilized for the public space walls. They require light machinery use and are more durable than traditional mud construction methods. Moreover, Interlocking Stabilized Compressed Earth blocks are considered a solution that combines the economy and sustainability of wattle & daub with the durability of masonry.

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Wood | is locally plentiful and renewable, and thus plays strongly in the new aesthetic. Most of the wood for the building comes from invasive alien trees cleared from local forests. Poles and logs are used instead of surfaced timber; the wood is to be treated with boron on site and finished naturally. Wooden windows are fabricated locally. Wood lath for screens and fences are harvested from local trees.

Reeds | are an indigenous building material in Kenya, and were used here to make domes, attractive ceiling mats and divider screens. Reeds regenerate rapidly, but the material has become expensive and scarce, as wetlands have been swallowed by development. Given the large number of detention ponds, it should be possible to revive the use of this renewable building material. Reed mats must be replaced relatively frequently, but because they are made by hand from renewable material, the ecological profile is favorable. Sustainability does not always equal durability.

Crushed demolition rubble | will be used as aggregate in the concrete foundations.

Thatching and sod roofs| will be planted with indigenous mountain plants that require no care.

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II. CULTURE IN VIHIGA a.

Early Settlement Patterns Kenya villages were almost invariably arranged in the form a circle enclosing the village livestock. The preferred high ground of the mountainsides afforded villagers protection from their enemies and from the often torrential rains that are endemic to the region. The natural terraces of the mountains provided level ground on which to build their homes. These villages typically overlooked a river valley in which fields enjoyed the healthiest soil, livestock was led to pasture, and where the wood and reeds that were their building materials could be easily harvested. Clean water and plenty of sunlight were also important considerations. An early settlement layout is considered the base to a successful modern settlement layout.

b.

Traditional House Types The Beehive hut | is made of a framework of saplings that are planted in the ground, bent and tied at an apex to form a dome.

They are fronted by a low tunnel entrance which protected the occupants from wind and rain and made the hut easier to defend against intruders. The wooden framework is thatched and the interior well plastered with a mud and dung mixture. Up until the nineteenth century, the beehive hut was the most common house type among Vihiga.

The Corbelled huts | emergence coincided with an increased scarcity of wood in the region. A population growing fast in its prosperity began to overtax the land of its resources. The long grasses of the plains were burnt regularly (a practice still common today), wild animals were hunted and killed to make way for human settlements and the landscape was denuded of trees. They were domed structures built entirely of slabs of dolerite and sometimes sandstone. These stones were corbelled inwards and capped with a flat slab. Most of these huts, being no higher than 1.2m, had no

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standing room but allowed several people to sit or curl up comfortably. One had to crawl on his hands and knees to enter the hut which was secured from wild beasts by another large slab of rock placed just inside the entrance. The huts were often adjoined by a paved terrace with a stone wall.

The Rondavel | is essentially a circular drum surmounted by a cone of thatch. Walls are built of stone, plastered wood or massive earth.

The new building type featured a door that one could enter without stooping or crawling, it allowed occupants to walk upright within its walls and introduced windows for better light and ventilation.

The Roloheisi | represents a dialogue between two cultures and two modes of thinking. It combines the circle of the African vernacular and the straight line of the European house. When the missionaries arrived in Kisumu and Vihiga, they built for themselves rectangular houses which are now referred to as heisi or polata. This is the second most common house type among Vihiga today. The tin roofs, right angles and straight walls (that readily accommodate western furniture and lifestyles) represent a desire for modernity among many Kenyans. However, adopting the roloheisi was the beginning of the western civilization contaminating the values and cultural habits in the region.

c. Gender Role & Cultural Habits Ancient cultural habits formed the foundation of the current gender roles in Vihiga.

The roles of men and women in Kenyan culture are clearly defined. Men occupied the worlds of pastoralism and politics while women were the cultivators who also took care of the home.

Animals are the love and wealth of the Vihigan man, the cow in particular representing his greatest treasure. The importance of the cow is evident in the placement of their enclosure at the center of the village. Beneath these walls, the chief and his family were buried. The kraal was consecrated space where no woman dared to tread.

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Affairs of state were conducted at court, not far from the chief’s house. Every male who was of age was expected to attend court on a regular basis. This was a meeting place for courtiers. It was the place where guests and travelers were received. Trials were heard and public affairs were discussed at court. Young men were instructed in the laws, mores and conduct of Basotho. Here they learned, amongst other skills, the preparation of hides and weaving of the grain baskets called lisiu. The court represent the realms of pastoralism and politics that were the sole preserve of men.

Women were responsible for cultivation and care of the home. Agriculture played a major role in the prosperity of Vihiga. At the time, Vihiga enjoyed a mixed economy based on pastoralism, cultivation, hunting-and-gathering and cattle raiding. Women made considerable contributions to that economy with their tireless work in the fields. Every year they prepared the soil, sowed, weeded and harvested. Every married Mosotho woman had her own hut and fields from whose produce she fed her family. Vehigans became excellent grain farmers. Through the system of mafisa, the population grew wealthy. During the 1840’s Vihiga was supplying food, in addition to cattle and horses to the ever-increasing population of Kenya.

Women’s duties were no less demanding in their homes. They prepared meals, maintained the house, washed clothes, brewed beer, made pottery and crafts and raised their children. In this realm, the female was master who had rights and powers the male could not impugn. These predetermined divisions of labor and duty based on gender, made for a stable and harmonious social arrangement.

d. Private & Public Spaces Public realm is the foremost design challenge that young Kenyan architects will face in their careers. Public and private spaces – and the relationship between them – had been once clearly represented for centuries in the tissue of early settlements and villages. In modern day, the most damaging effect of colonial dictatorship is the disappearance of the public space. However, true public space may not happen in Vihiga for decades; adopted governmental suppression of civil liberties discourages public debate. While Kenyan civic spaces exist in cities, they function more symbolically than operatively. In the current vacuum of public

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space the domestic sphere is the best venue for communal discourse. The home is often positioned as a conceptual antithesis to the public sphere. Yet the very qualities of domesticity—opacity, privacy, security—also shelter personal liberties.

In practice, public and private spaces are enmeshed: contained within the public space of the village are private spaces that, in turn, contain other, more familial, public spaces. Embedded in the Operation Vihiga Project is a study that the Vihigan house can represent a kind of semi-public space which ties to a greater public space where individual empowerment results in communal good.

Daily activities based on a field study of (23) families

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SECTION D

FIELD STUDIES

The core of my methodology is to understand users in order to find out their fundamental intents, desires, and drivers which may be invisible to the people in Vihiga. So the only way to achieve it was to go out in the field and talk with people.

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View over the Great Rift Valley

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I. PRECEDENT STUDIES Precedent refers to what has preceded us or come before in time. Precedent is used in all disciplines as a guide or a justification for a particular line of thinking or a course of action, or for a particular decision. Architectural precedent does not only refer to what is presented and celebrated in formal overviews of architectural history and theory, it also refers to one’s own house, village, or city, and the vernacular traditions of the world. In other words, the entire history of the human endeavor in Kenya to build shelter is my source of precedent (Paul Righini, 2010) Studying vernacular traditions enables us to appreciate relationship between building form and context, as well as the use of local resource and technology. Vernacular traditions demonstrate a profound awareness of climate and reveal ways of ordering space that are special and pertinent to the particular culture in Vihiga, Kenya.

a. New Gourna Village | Egypt | Hassan Fathy Hassan Fathy followed a contextual theory design based on cultural habits, the use of local materials, and achieving sustainability. 

The symmetry and balance are carefully studied between the bedrooms and living areas creating a barrier between private and public, while the circulation takes shape at the common area between both spaces.



The structure is mainly kept to the exterior walls providing a sense of security with thicker walls while allowing natural day light within the entire space by using different elements as “mashrabia”.



The formal shape of a square provides a unique form layout and lends to a simplistic method of construction that allows utilizing local material and labor.



The basic dome shape used in Egyptian tradition is hemispherical.

Horizontal concentric courses of bricks are laid first at a shallow angle and then more sharply inclined as one builds the concentric rings higher and towards the top. The distance from the center of the dome and the angle of each brick is given by a wire or a radial arm which rotates around a central post.

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Village Master Plan

Dome Construction

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Single Unit Design

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Private

Semi-Public

Semi-Private

Public

Private and Public Spaces

Sustainable ‘Wind Catches’

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b. Maasai Village | Case Study In order to fully understand the origins of Kenyan culture and its effect on architecture in the region, I had decided to take a long trip into the depth of the Great Rift Valley and study the Maasai culture as it is considered one of the oldest and most preserved cultures in the area.

According to their own oral history, the Maasai originated from the lower Nile valley north of Lake Turkana (Northwest Kenya) and began migrating south around the 15th century, arriving in a long trunk of land stretching from what is now northern Kenya to what is now central Tanzania between the 17th and late 18th century.

Many ethnic groups that had already formed settlements in the region were forcibly displaced by the incoming Maasai, while other, mainly southern Cushitic groups, were assimilated into Maasai society.

The Maasai people stood against slavery and lived alongside most wild animals; which allowed their culture to remain untouched by western colonialism. Maasai society never condoned traffic of human beings, and outsiders looking for people to enslave avoided the Maasai.

The Maasai territory reached its largest size in the mid-19th century, and covered almost all of the Great Rift Valley and adjacent lands from Mount Marsabit in the north to Dodoma in the south.

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Welcome Ceremony

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The Maasai's autosomal DNA has been examined in a comprehensive study by Tishkoff et al. (2009) on the genetic affiliations of various populations in Africa.

According to the study's authors, the Maasai "have maintained their culture in the face of extensive genetic introgression". Tishkoff et al. also indicate that: "Many NiloSaharan-speaking populations in East Africa, such as the Maasai, show multiple cluster assignments from the Nilo-Saharan (red) and Cushitic (dark purple) AACs, in accord with linguistic evidence of repeatedNilotic assimilation of Cushites over the past 3000 years and with the high frequency of a shared East African–specific mutation associated with lactose tolerance." 

Culture | Maasai society is strongly patriarchal in nature, with elder men, sometimes joined by retired elders, deciding most major matters for each Maasai group. A full body of oral law covers many aspects of behavior.

Traditional Maasai lifestyle centres around their cattle which

constitute their primary source of food. The measure of a man's wealth is in terms of cattle and children. A herd of 50 cattle is respectable, and the more children the better. A man who has plenty of one but not the other is considered to be poor. All of the Maasai’s needs for food are met by their cattle. They eat the meat, drink the milk and on occasion, drink the blood.

Bulls, oxen and lambs are slaughtered for meat on special occasions and for ceremonies. 

Influences from the outside world | Maintaining a traditional pastoral lifestyle has become increasingly difficult due to outside influences of the modern world. Garrett Hardin's article, outlining the "tragedy of the commons", as well as Melville Herskovits' "cattle complex" helped to influence ecologists and policy makers about the harm Maasai pastoralists were causing to savannah rangelands. This concept was later proven false by anthropologists but is still deeply ingrained in the minds of ecologists and Tanzanian officials. This influenced British colonial policy makers in 1951 to remove all Maasai from the Serengeti National Park and relegate them to areas in and around the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Over the years, many projects have begun to help Maasai tribal leaders find ways to preserve their traditions while also balancing the education needs of their children for the modern world.

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Village Chief

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

Social Organization | According to my interview with the chief, the central unit of Maasai society is the age-set. Young boys are sent out with the calves and lambs as soon as they can toddle, but childhood for boys is mostly playtime, with the exception of ritual beatings to test courage and endurance. Girls are responsible for chores such as cooking and milking, skills which they learn from their mothers at an early age. The Maasai are traditionally polygynous; this is thought to be a long-standing and practical adaptation to high infant and warrior mortality rates. Polyandry is also practiced. A woman marries not just her husband, but the entire age group.

Men are expected to give up their bed to a visiting age-mate guest. The woman decides strictly on her own if she will join the visiting male.



Shelter | As a historically nomadic and then semi-nomadic people, the Maasai have traditionally relied on local, readily available materials and indigenous technology to construct their housing. The traditional Maasai house was in the first instance designed for people on the move and was thus very impermanent in nature. The Inkajijik (houses) are either starshaped or circular, and are constructed by able-bodied women. The structural framework is formed of timber poles fixed directly into the ground and interwoven with a lattice of smaller branches, which is then plastered with a mix of mud, sticks, grass, cow dung, human urine, and ash. The cow dung ensures that the roof is waterproof.

The enkaj is small, measuring about 3x5 m and standing only 1.5 m high.

Within this space, the family cooks, eats, sleeps, socializes, and stores food, fuel, and other household possessions. Small livestock are also often accommodated within the enkaji. Villages are enclosed in a circular fence (an enkang) built by the men, usually of thorned acacia, a native tree. At night, all cows, goats, and sheep are placed in an enclosure in the center, safe from wild animals.

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Village Aerial View

View from Inside

View from Outside 38

Maasai Village Plan

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View from Outside

Inkajijik (House) Entrance

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c. African Fractals | Rhythm of African Life The first shape is an overhead view of a single house. The second a family enclosure. Finally, the third iteration provides a structure that could be the overhead view of the whole settlement.

Note that the self-replicating line off-center is the position of the altar in the house, and the position of the village altar in the chief’s family ring: a resonance between spiritual notions of endless renewal, mathematical models of self-replication, and physical structure that we see in many of the fractal village architectures of Africa.

At the smallest scale, if we were to view a single house in the family ring from above, we would see that it is a ring with a special place at the back of the interior: the household altar.

The settlement as a whole has the same shape: it is a ring of rings. The settlement, like the family ring, has a front/back social distinction: the entrance is low status, and the back end is high status. At the settlement entrance there are no family enclosures at all for the first 20 yards or so, but the farther back we go, the larger the family enclosures become.

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II. TESTING CONSTRUCTION METHODS Over the last 5 weeks of summer 2015, I had a chance to design and build a 1,800 square feet shelter and library in Vihiga on a smaller size site. It was the ideal opportunity to test and refine a contextual design methodology.

A Kenyan builder and consultant, Joel Oriema, lead an initial two-week training session for the construction crew prior to my arrival. We categorized the available labor by trade and craftsman skills as follows: a. Site work and foundation b. Brick makers and masonry workers c. Wood work and carpentry d. Thatching and roofing I created an open-source construction manual that described the method step-by-step once the design was complete. The document is another architectural tool for engaging the public, and another indication of the pedagogical current that runs through the entire Vihiga Village Project. The manual was written in English as it is widely spoken in Vihiga, but relied heavily on photographs because many Vihigans do not read or write. Many architectural drawings, particularly axonometrics, beloved by architects, are too abstract for this public. During my communication with the villagers, only one out of thirty members was able to sketch a plan of their existing home as a part of the pre-design process. While the villagers had a certain visual literacy—they could draw their house’s front elevation, for instance—many were embarrassed to draw floor plans.

Interior Shot

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Site Staking

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Using Chalk to Mark Foundation

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Concrete Base

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Stone Foundation

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Terrace Carpentry

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Screen Thatching

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III. TESTING CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS

The Effect of Climate on Available Materials Glass

Stone

Concrete

Steel

Mud Brick

Wood

Fabric

Thatching

Reflects

Fades

Absorbs

Reflects

Absorbs

Fades

Fades

Through

Stains

Erodes

Cracks

Rusts

Cracks / Erodes

Rots

Rots

Rots / Stains

Heat

N/A

N/A

N/A

Expands

Cracks

Cracks

N/A

Dries

Cold

N/A

N/A

N/A

Contracts

N/A

Contracts

N/A

N/A

Blackens

Blackens

N/A

Melts / Bends

Blackens

Burns

Burns

Burns

Fluctuates

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

Fluctuates

Light Water

Fire Wind

Could Shift or Move

Local Material Cost Effectiveness

Cost

Glass

Stone

Concrete

Steel

Mud Brick

Wood

Fabric

Thatching

Expensive

Moderate

Expensive

Expensive

Low Cost

Low Cost

Moderate

Low Cost

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140 years

120 years

100 years

80 years

60 years

40 years

20 years

0 years

Local Material Durability

Glass

Stone

Concrete

Steel

Mud Brick

Wood

Fabric

Thatching

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Based on the above material analysis and the local craftsmanship, the following are materiality conclusions and design considerations: a. Eliminate glass and steel as construction materials due to their high cost and lack of craftsmanship. b. Minimize the use of concrete and limit it to the foundation bedding as needed. c. Utilize stone for critical structural elements where durability is needed. d. Utilize excavated earth to make durable mud bricks on site. Local labor has intensive experience in creating mud bricks at low cost and high efficiency. e. Utilize wood to create structural beams and support. f.

Create thatched roofs and vertical surfaces that function as a screen protecting the mud bricks and increasing its durability. The screen will also function as a natural chimney to support air circulation. Thatched surfaces will be maintained periodically using free materials from the site and surrounding environment.

g. Use local fabrics to create temporary tents and removable covers for ceremonial spaces during rain season.

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IV. EXISTING SITE CONDITIONS

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SECTION E

PROPOSED PROGRAM EDUCATIONAL

1,300 SQ.FT.

CLASSROOMS LIBRARY TECHNOLOGY CENTER ADMINISTRATION

500 SQ.FT. 300 SQ.FT. 250 SQ.FT. 250 SQ.FT.

MARKET & WORKSHOPS MAIN WORKSHOP INDIVIDUAL WORKSHOPS KITCHEN BATHROOMS

900 SQ.FT. 300 SQ.FT. 200 SQ.FT. 100 SQ.FT. 300 SQ.FT.

SPIRITUAL MOSQUE GATHERING & EVENT SPACE CLEANSING AREA MEDITATION & TEA GARDEN

7,600 SQ.FT. 2,000 SQ.FT. 2,300 SQ.FT. 1,300 SQ.FT. 2,000 SQ.FT.

LIVE STOCK PLANTING GARDENS CIRCULATION, AND PATIOS

1,000 SQ.FT. 14,000 SQ.FT. 3,000 SQ.FT.

TOTAL PROGRAM

30,000 SQ.FT.

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60

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Proposed Floor Plan

62

63

Overall View

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65

66

67

68

69

70

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BIBLIOGRAPHY



Books Fathy, Hassan (1969). Architecture for the Poor Eglash, Ron (1999). African Fractals Modern Computing and Indigenous Design Asante, M. (2007). The History of Africa. USA: Routhledge.

Amponsah, S. (2010). Beyond the Boundaries: Toyin Falola on African Cultures Gill, Stephen (1993). A short history of Lesotho.Morija Museum & Archives Turner, Raymond M (1998). Kenya's Changing Landscape Vine, Jeremy (1999). View from Nairobi Robinson, Simon (2000). Free as the Wind Blows, Time Paul Righini (2010) Thinking Architecturally African Civilization Revisited From Antiquity to Modern Times (1991)



Unpublished Materials Vihiga County Integrated Development Plan A History of the World in Six Classes. Walker and Company Anderson, Helena and Sovre, Martina: Traditional Rural Dwellings of Lesotho



Electronic Resources Irele, F.A. (2010). Westernisation. http://science.jrank.org/pages/8152/westernisation Elanor Stanford. Culture of Kenya. http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/Kenya.html Embassy of the Republic of Kenya in Japan. http://www.kenyarep-jp.com/kenya/history_e.html

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