Care is one of the topics raised by the community of Kigamboni: care homes, small and medium scale medical practices, medical training centers. To facilitate the area’s healthy and sustainable growth, from the inside out.
In this project care is the programmatic opportunity to explore new typologies and urban compositions that enable informal settlement to densify at its own pace. Firstly, a subtle network of pedestrian links between the existing buildings and private plots is defined. These lines or axis become the guides of future growth, organising new volumes and activities to embrace the public space and create liveable, safe areas without the use of the typical barbed wire walls.
The ground level focuses on life between buildings. The concrete plinth allows large openings enabling the accessibility of the buildings. Rammed earth walls arise on top and provide a eco-friendly building material. Facing the streets, the walls show a geometric pattern and give the building it’s worthy appearance, while the courtyards provide contrast with their sober wooden galleries that link the buildings together. This contrast creates an onset toward defining public, semi-public and private spaces. The pitched roofs are a typological reference to the surrounding houses and provide a strong identity to the residential block as a whole.
In this lay-out, the volumes can vary in dimensions and height, tailored to its program and function, while adding positively to a coherent urban composition.
