This trade school in Nairobi has no power bill and no sewage line. Solar panels and a constructed wetland do the job instead.
Skills Center Nairobi sits in Malaa, built to train young people from Mathare, Nairobi’s second-largest informal settlement, in trade skills they can use to earn a living. It’s the first building in Kenya built with bamboo as its primary structural material, not just decoration or infill.
Hand-formed local stone makes up the walls. A 4kW photovoltaic system powers the whole site. Wastewater runs through a dry toilet and a constructed wetland instead of a conventional sewage line.
Architecture students from Munich and Augsburg designed and built it alongside construction students from JKUAT and local workers, over two phases in 2011 and 2012. Nobody airlifted in a finished design. They built it together, on site, with what the region could supply.
A school that teaches trade skills, built by people learning to build.
Skills Center Nairobi | TUM DesignBuild + Hermann Kaufmann, with JKUAT
Malaa, Nairobi, Kenya | 2011-2012 | Photographs: Matthias Kestel
One day, I’ll have my bath, go to work in the morning, then head to the airport in the evening to start a new life in another country.
But until then, a moving babe will meet her luck soonest.