African Housing Renaissance: The Case of Gacuriro Valley Satellite Settlements, Kigali, Rwanda

Abstract

This article traces an African Housing Renaissance through the Trabantenstadt (Satellite City) vision for Kigali embedded in the Gacuriro Valley Satellite, which is composed of two settlements (or umudugudu, in Kinyarwanda): Kigali 2020 (2001–2005) and Kigali Vision (2013–2016). While the Kigali 2020 is an integrated Trabant (Satellite) which is able to interact with the existing context and trace the future built and unbuilt developments, the Kigali Vision adopts the idea of a protected compound, morphologically connected with the older settlements, but unable to tackle and solve spatial and social issues due to its ‘defensive’ character. The particular topography of the hillside receives an ambivalent interpretation: in the first umudugudu, the slope inspires the whole project, an organic raumplan, and in the second it has been denied, having been leveled for flat houses’ foundations and consequently a flat spatial indoor distribution. Nevertheless, this article argues that despite the evident architectural differences between the two settlements, they remain in the tradition of the Neues Bauen, in which mass housing represents the physical way of accommodating different social classes, granting equal and favorable living conditions. The typological variety demonstrates the aim to inclusively target distinct segments of the population. Apartment buildings (condominiums), row houses, twin houses and single houses mixed with public facilities, schools, a church, and sports structures, make up the settlements as unique pieces of a system and, at the same time, a singular whole.