Kounkuey Design Initiative

Issues of environmental degradation and urban slums are two of the greatest crisis we will face in the 21st century. Kounkuey Design Initiative's Productive Public Spaces advance solutions to both by turning enviornmental hazzards into economically, socially, and environmenally sustainable community assets.

Project Type:
urban planning design strategy
landscape design
architecture

Project Mission/Goal:
improve the human spirit
increase awareness of the environment and/or address climate change
respond to our growing need for clean water, power, shelter, healthcare, education

Project Description: Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) has developed a community-driven process for dealing with issues of poverty, quality of life, and environmental degradation. It works with communities in urban slums to design, build, and manage Productive Public Spaces that are sustainable,low-maintenance and contextually appropriate. Public spaces created by KDI are more than just playgrounds, gardens, and meeting houses. They incorporate the positive environmental aspects of their direct surroundings while substantially reducing the negative ones. They transform sites from places where residents once went to dump trash to places where residents now go to work, play, and interact. The innovative microenterprises created by KDI and the community at each site, support the costs of maintaining the sites for future generations. By incorporating environmental, social, and economic sustainability into the design of each site, KDI creates public spaces that transform communities.
To date, the organization has constructed two Productive Public Spaces in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya that by some estimates is the largest in sub-Saharan Africa. The first site, completed in 2009, stands on land reclaimed from the swamps that border Kibera. The land around KDI’s first site previously served as a dumping ground for plastic bags, human waste, and other materials. This buildup caused severe flooding during Kenya’s twin rainy seasons. By clearing trash, reclaiming swampland, and installing gabions along the river bank to withstand intense flooding, KDI and its local partners have alleviated many of the environmental problems that plagued nearby residents for years. KDI also constructed a playground, a shade structure for community gatherings (with a roof that harvest rain water into two 10,000 liter water tanks), a garden, and an office for the community-based organization (CBO) created to maintain and govern the site. In partnership with the CBO, KDI has created profitable on-site ventures such as basket weaving, producing organic fertilizer, and selling potable water. Keeping with KDI’s multi-sectoral approach to community development, each of these projects is meant to satisfy environmental and social sustainability measures in addition to enabling the economic self-sufficiency of the project over time. Baskets are woven from water hyacinth, an invasive species that has clogged the Nairobi Dam that neighbors the site. Fertilizer is created from organic waste collected from nearby homes and vegetable stands. The first productive public space impacts 250 residents directly, thousands indirectly, and a handful of Kenyan and US design students that work as interns. The space has provided the local residents of Kibera with access to sanitation, employment opportunities, new amenities, and a cleaner, more attractive environment in which to relax and play.
KDI is currently constructing its second productive public space in a neighboring village in Kibera. Designed with the same principles that guided construction of the first site, the second location will also aim to support the community environmentally, socially, and economically. When completed, the site will include a day care, a toilet bloc, a playground, a new foot bridge, a water tank, and merchant kiosks. Together these spaces begin to form a spine of alternative infrastructure for residents across Kibera. A CBO has already been created and microenterprises are forming. KDI hopes to create lasting change in the landscapes of informal settlement by establishing more productive public spaces throughout Kibera and other urban settlements like it.

Video(s):

Links and Captions: www.kounkuey.org

Project Details:
Project Location:Kibera Slum, Nairobi, Kenya
Date(s): 2007 to Present
Project Phase: First site complete, Second site currently under construction
Client: First site: community of Soweto East/Shilanga, Kibera Second Site: Communities of Mashimoni/Lindi, Kibera
Description and Number of Beneficiaries/Users: 250 members of partner community group, thousands of direct benficieries/users
Major Funding: Private family foundation in USA
Concept/Lead Architect(s)/Designer(s): Chelina Odbert, Jennifer Toy, Arthur Adeya, Luke Clark Tyler,
Structural Engineers: Joe Mulligan, Byron Stiggie
Additional Consultants: Buro Happold,Luke Perry,Eco-Build Africa
Total Cost/Cost per Unit: 30,000 per site

Nominated by Joshua Sperling

Location