Rwanda keeps showing most of Africa what it refuses to try.
Most people think brick means red. Brown. The colour of laterite and fired earth. That’s all we imagine when someone says “build with local materials.”
This is African Leadership University, Kigali. The brick is pale. Almost cream. Still clay, still local, made in Muhanga, 1.5 hours from the site, fired in coffee-husk-powered kilns. Same earth, different result. Rwanda didn’t abandon local material for aesthetics. They refined it.
The structure underneath is compressed stabilized earth blocks fabricated on site. Six terraced levels down a 40-metre hillside. No air conditioning in most of the building. Shaded corridors and natural ventilation handle Kigali’s climate. An 1,800 cubic metre stormwater pond manages the rain. The hill, the wind, the earth, all doing structural and environmental work.
Furniture made on site. Lighting made on site. Signage, lockers, benches, all local fabrication. Rwanda didn’t just use local material for the walls. They used local hands for everything inside.
This is not an exception. This is a pattern. And the buildings speak for themselves.
MASS Design Group | Kigali Innovation City, Gasabo District 🇷🇼 | 6,500 m² | 2021
We lost another Queen to Gender based violence. She got locked inside the house and burned alive by her abusive boyfriend. At the first sign of abuse please leave, please man 😭💔
Education is SOOOOO00000 IMPORTANT. Degrees. Licenses. Certs. Training classes. Late nights and early morning studying. Weekend and night school. Community college. Don't matter what it takes. DO IT.
Lately, my prayer to God has simply been for functionality. A life where things work. A life where the bills are paid, where I can show up for my friends and family, and where the problems I face are at least solvable. Because honestly, few things in life are as painful as feeling stagnant. 🙏
Dropped my kid off at school. Took a nice morning walk/jog. Now having an ice coffee at Seattle while I wait for shops to open at 9. Then I’ll go home and get some work done before school pick-up. I used to dream of owning my time like this 🥺❤️
hi babies! @MbalulaFikile and ze nxumalo,
what are ya'll gonna do after all the lies and scheming because the phone has rang,
see ya'll soon at the lil commission,
xo xo,
gossip girl,