Bungoma Housing Project / Samantha Kollmeyer + Kit Kollmeyer
Construction for Change, a non-profit in the United States, focuses on building the necessary infrastructure to sustain impoverished communities’ needs. Kit and Samantha Kollmeyer were asked by the CFC to design housing for the One Acre Fund in Bungoma, Kenya to provide a new facility for the growing organization. The One Acre Fund hopes to expand the number of families they provide aid to, from 12,000 families to 33,000 families in the next two years, so this husband and wife team was brought in to design a new headquarters consisting of office and classroom space, and two-bedroom housing units for in-country volunteers.
More about the Kollmeyer’s project after the break.
The site offers different obstacles the Kollmeyers had to reconcile such as the fact that in Bungoma, rain can reach nine inches per day and due to the site’s placement directly on the equator, there are sun tracks on all four sides of the building. But, the Kollmeyers even addressed “unusual” client needs, such as minimizing the “clucking of chickens”, the main source of noise, by having only a few windows face out to the site.
The Kollmeyers, having virtually no access to the site and having never been to Kenya, began designing the housing to respond to the climatic data of the area and the One Acre Fund’s needs.
“We opted for a courtyard design, with the focus of all living, sleeping, and kitchen space being directed inward to the center of the home. A structural core of CMU block provides strength for the center of the home, with brick infill enclosing the rest of the spaces, allowing us to cut construction costs. Pitched roofs shed rain while promoting passive cooling by directing hot air out high vents strategically placed at the top of the roof pitch. A horizontal trellis overhead in the court provides an opportunity for plant life to grow and help trap and produce cool air through evaporation while providing the requested security. Tall, screened windows in the exterior walls provide ventilation and additional light, while the larger, operable windows give views to the outside,” explained the team.
The light and open central courtyard provides a safe place for its inhabitants and serves as an extended living space for the home. The plants covering the trellis will help control the climate of the home by providing shade and when the evaporation vapors rise, it creates a cooling effect. Plus, a channel installed in the courtyard and the design of the pitched roof minimizes the effects of a potential flood.
Construction will begin in January of this year when Connor Dinnison and Dave Betts, the project managers, travel to Kenya to begin assembling a construction team and finding material suppliers. The team will have six months and a total budget of $100,000 to build all five homes.
Credits:
All Imagery by Sam and Kit Kollmeyer
Client:
One Acre Fund
OneAcreFund.org
Collaborators:
Construction for Change
ConstructionForChange.org
Construction Team:
Construction for Change
Connor Dinnison, Project Manager
Dave Betts, Project Manager
Design Team:
Kit and Samantha Kollmeyer
it’s cool..
it’s truly design, not merely skyscraper,,or expensive house.
:D
We laud architectural achievements such as Burj Khalifa and generally lose sight of design that is responsible for achieving such greater heights.
word
Nice. Well thought out. I like how environmental factors were considered–sun, rain, potential of flood, sound of chickens, the heat, etc, etc… Practical and functional.
Speaking powerty, I mean REAL POWERTY in Africa, local people can’t afford even one CMU. In this perspective, this nice house is not realistic in this way.
Enn, this design is for the *office* of a non-profit and is not intended to replace local housing. Read the story again before mounting your high horse.
There are too many things wrong with the design to adequately address them in this post.
First, NO ONE does a courtyard design in Bungoma! This design is for the coastal climate of Kenya, not the wet mild tropical climate of Bungoma (max temperature is 25°C). 25°C is not hot but very comfortable. You could argue that they are trying to do something new, but then the budget for the five houses needs to double. More practical would have been to substitute the courtyard with rain water harvesting systems!
Roof vents are totally unnecessary. I ask the designers to go visit the houses after one year and they will find them blocked up by the inhabitants.
Thanks for the comment Kwenda. We did consider rainwater harvesting. The people in Bungoma were concerned about collecting rainwater because it could possibly become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Malaria is a serious problem in Africa and even if we used netting or other preventative measures in our collection systems, the risk is too great to depend on secondary systems that could fail over time.
We looked at the current state of housing in Bungoma, and while there aren’t many examples of local courtyard houses, we did find several public buildings that use courts for the same reasons that we did. It’s a practical system for ventilation, and although in African terms Bungoma has a mild temperature,it’s humid and there are hot days. For the set of problems that are inherent in this site, a courtyard design simply makes sense.
As for budget, there is no reason that people or organizations that don’t have a large budget cannot have a house that incorporates “new” ideas, although a courtyard is in no means a new idea. We were in constant contact with the people in Bungoma, and this was in no way a heavy handed architect’s approach to design. This solution belongs as much to the people in One Acre Fund as it does to us.
For the stack ventilation to work, the design must have high vents. The reason that they are blocked up over time, as you mentioned, is normally because there is a standard vent block with small openings that get blocked up with leaves/dirt. We are not using those vent blocks. It will be a removable screen that can be cleaned from the inside.
We hope that you follow our blog and we’ll all get to see how it works, as the inhabitants will be posting about how it performs once they move in.
We are optimistic. Thanks again for your post.
My ancestral home is in the Bungoma area, and I’ve a degree in architecture. I find it rather unfortunate that local architects couldn’t have been used for this project. But then again, that is how “aid” works in Africa: bring in foreign experts to do work that locals could very easily do.
Nelima. Send me an e-mail and lets talk about phase two. One of the main goals of both of these non-profits is to reduce the cycle of dependency, which it seems that you are familiar with. CFC is hiring local people to build these, at a better than standard wage.
I understand your sarcastic stance on aid, but if you look at the One Acre Fund website you’ll see that their goal is to give local farmers the tools to help themselves, and not only help break the hunger season, but break this terrible dependency.
Sam and I feel that this is how we can help change the world, by working with local people to help fill their needs. We didn’t make one cent from our countless hours of work, and we feel good about it. In an industry where design fees can be 20%, our ability to not charge either of these organizations for a design that was based as much on cost and build-ability helps CFC pay a fair wage to locals and even add some structure that maybe wouldn’t have been in the budget. If it makes you feel better, we aren’t “experts” we’re simply people that are lucky enough to have come into contact with organizations that needed volunteers.
Contact us through our blog and lets talk about how to more involve local architects in future phases.
@Kim and Sam: Just because the solution belongs to the people in One Acre Fund as it does to you, does not make it right! This solution, in my opinion, belongs to the coastal region of Kenya and NOT Bungoma. When you are in Bungoma, please note how many people walk around in sweaters and jackets in the “hot humid” climate. What the people of Bungoma will call cold will be a mild warm day for you!
Vents are mandatory in Kenya not for natural ventilation reasons, but because people cook indoors using charcoal. Only in the coastal region are vents used for natural ventilation.
An open court yard is used in public buildings because people congregate in them. Your courtyard will be roofed by the owners as soon as you are out of the picture.
I do not know what idea you had for rain water collection hence the mosquito risk, my idea is a fairly simple common and standard practice in Kenya i.e. use a plastic tank to collect rain water run-off from the roof!
Enough said! I hope you get someone who knows the region and is an architect like Nelima to help you out.
Kwenda. Thank you for your concerns. I’m sorry that we have offended you with our design. I hope that you follow the construction on our blog. You might be pleasantly surprised.
There is an issue with rain-barrels, which is what we had initially planned. To keep mosquitoes out we would rely on a screen. As you know, mosquitoes will find their way in through any tear in a screen. The people in Bungoma thought that it was just too much of a risk to rely on a screen that could be damaged. Of course the building can easily be retrofitted to use rain barrels if they would like to have them in the future.
They will be cooking with propane, not charcoal, so the vents in these homes will be for natural ventilation reasons. People there complain of moldy houses because homes with no ventilation have stagnant humid air.
You are absolutely correct in saying that there is a social aspect to a courtyard. In fact that was one of the main drivers to include one in the home. The people at OAF are very happy to have a gathering place in their houses.
We are not unfamiliar with this sweater phenomenon. It makes sense that people adapt to their climate, and Sam and I have seen it all over. My favorite example is the rickshaw drivers in India. They wear sweaters in 29º weather while pulling tourists in sweaty t-shirts and shorts. I simply said that there are hot days, and it is humid. But you are correct, the average temperature is quite comfortable.
We are so happy that people are interested in this project, and your opinions are important to us. This is how we grow as designers, through constructive criticism. We’d like to speak with you more about this so please e-mail us.
Kit and Sam
Some interesting debate and comment has emanated since your posting. Perhaps some unfair and some misunderstood, but this is what design is all about.
Your design honesty however is applaudable and your motives commendable.
I will follow your progress with interest and support.
Cameron
These American dudes are giving their time and expertise for free and local architects are complaining? If theyre so concerned about foreign architects getting work here they should go to Bungoma and start their own project. Bure Kabisa!
Commendable effort although the CMU might be costly. Is the brick sourced within Bungoma?. Another aspect is the quality of the brick in Kenya is not very good for load bearing. And the most important is the lack of a maintenance culture in Kenya. I believe there are ways to build more than 5 houses with $100,000 and still respond to the brief.