Examples of Sustainable Buildings in Nairobi

(blog post from the 4th, but posted on the 6th due to internet issues)

I, Annika, am now sitting at a hotel in Mwanza, Tanzania, and have finally found some time to write. I left Sweden 6 days ago and started my journey by going to Nairobi in Kenya to visit some friends and to do study visits to interesting examples of buildings and projects that apply some sustainable building principles. 

The first building I visited was the Learning Resource Center at the Catholic University in Nairobi. It was designed by architect Musau Kimeu, and is an excellent example of a building that adopts sustainable building techniques appropriate for a tropical climate. To create a comfortable indoor climate it combines passive ventilation through the ’stack effect’ with passive cooling through a rock bed heat exchange system. Hot outdoor air is drawn in and cooled down by a rock bed located under the main seating area before it is let out in the conference hall, in which the air slowly heats up and rises due to the stack effect before it is let out through the roof. Sun shading outside windows that are adapted to the amount and direction of sun is also used. For example, a combination of large overhangs and horizontal shading devices are used to prevent direct sun from reaching the windows and overheating the interior space. The rock bed heat exchange system. 

 The rock bed heat exchange system. http://buildesign.co.ke/the-lrc/ 

  Cross ventilation and the stack effect. http://buildesign.co.ke/the-lrc/ 

The second project was a Skills Center for the Youth of Nairobi. It was a boarding school set up in the outskirts of Nairobi where youths could come to learn practical skills like metal work, woodcrafts and sowing. The center was built using local materials. The walls were made of stone from a local quarry nearby, and the roofs were made of bamboo from the Aberdares area in Kenya. All the furniture used in the center was of course made on site by the youths. There was also a clear systemic approach to natural resources. The toilets were separating urine and feces, and both were reused in different ways in the garden. Electricity was provided by solar panels on the roofs. 

The last study visit in Nairobi was to an engineering company that makes block presses used for producing interlocking stabilized soil blocks (ISSB), called Makiga Engineering. There are several benefits as I see it with using the ISSB press. First, is that the cost of the building will be drastically less than when building with for example concrete blocks, due to that the soil block technique will  require much less cement to make, and the interlocking building technique requires very little mortar in comparison to non-interlocking. Second, the material used for construction of a building can most often be the soil existing on the site. Third, the machine takes four people, with a little bit of training, to operate which means that you bing an income generating activity to the local community using the technique. 

Andreas and Daniel just arrived, and now we’ll go out to explore Mwanza. 

/Annika