We are a team of four architecture students designing teachers accommodations and a youth hostel for the Kangemi Youth Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. We are supported by the cultural exchange and charity organization “nyendo-lernen” (https://nyendo-lernen.de/) and the “Chair of Architectural Design and Participation” of Prof. Francis Kéré at the TU Munich.
Nyendo-Lernen
The German/Kenyan NGO works with 9 Waldorf-Schools in Germany and 14 private schools in Kenya. It promotes cultural exchange by founding pupil companies in German schools, and using the generated money to support Kenyan schools. In addition to that, German students come and visit their Kenyan partners every year. In return, some of the Kenyan Headmasters are invited to Germany to attend congresses and get a notion of the European lifestile in person.
Diébédo Francis Kéré
The German/Burkinabé architect
Diébédo Francis Kéré was born in 1965 in Gando, Burkina Faso and studied at the Technical University of Berlin. Parallel to his studies, he established the Kéré Foundation, a charitable organization that is dedicated to helping sustainably improve the lives of people in Gando, Burkina Faso. In 2005 he founded Kéré Architecture.
His architectural practice has been recognized nationally and internationally with awards including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first building, a primary school in Gando, Burkina Faso, and the Global Holcim Award 2012 Gold. Kéré has undertaken projects in varied countries including Burkina Faso, Mali, Germany, and Switzerland. In 2017 the Serpentine Galleries commissioned him to design the Serpentine Pavilion in London. He has held professorships at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Swiss Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio. In 2017 he accepted the professorship for “Architectural Design and Participation” at TU München (Germany).
Kéré continues to reinvest knowledge back into Burkina Faso and other sites across four different continents. He has developed innovative construction strategies that combine traditional building techniques and materials with modern engineering methods.
Kangemi Youth Centre Architecture 