Open Architecture Network

After the site visit their was a realization that you could take down ALL the structures and start a fresh. SIDAREC is leaving this decision in the hands of the designers.

If we take down all of the structures and start from scratch are we still to hold the project budget at $150,000 USD?

From the pictures I can tell that the site has black cotton soil which has high swelling and shrinkage characteristics and is generally bad for structures built on them.

If you zoom out of the site location, links provided below, you will see abandoned quarries nearby. In fact the SIDAREC buildings on site provide you with a picture of what are the cheapest building materials available in Kenya and they are:

1. Natural stone which can either be machine cut or shaped on site

2. metal sheets for roofing which are normally a form of galvanised steel and is manufactured locally. Scrap metal is expensive and would get stolen especially in a slum.

3. wooden frame from trees which are harvested when about 5-7m tall with a diameter of about 10-15cm. Generally wood is expensive as Kenya has put a complete stop to logging. Most hardwoods are imported from either Sudan, Congo or even as far out as South Africa.

4. There is a cement factory further down south of the site but please note that cement has become scarce as there is an unprecedented building boom that is even threatening expansion of the airport and has had an effect of prices shooting up (http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?Itemid=5813&id=2915&option=com_content...)

infact, the shape of the site is not the perfect rectangle that is depicted in the sketch. check out the google earth image and superimpose the sketch to the satelite photo to give yourself a better picture

I have tried comparing it with the aerial photograph of the area from Google earth, but the drawing does not seem to correspond precisely the aerial photograph. if i locate it, i will let you know. i wouldn't mind if you could do the same.
thanks!

I think the aerial photograph doesn't match the site images too! I also looked for the site in the surroundings but couldn't find it. I can't even find some landmarks we can see on the pictures:
- that tall building with three roofs and blue verandas
- the building with a teal square roof and a metal pinnacle
- that teal-roofed and the red-roofed construction groups that appear in the background of the mukuru kwa njenga view

I tried to contact SIDAREC to solve this lack of information, but no answer. To the date, AFH couldn't respond any requests either, except for an week-late email reply that claimed the site couldn't be measured yet for strategic reasons. It seems they're seeing this as a design concepts competition. I wonder how any sustainable building concept could ever be developed without the site's solar orientation!

I'll keep on searching for the missing information, and If I find any, I'll be happy to share them here. If anyone knows anything else, I'm interested!

thank you so much for your initiative, you are amazing!!!!

i don't know how you found the right site, it is so far from what AFH has located. but i second the opinion that you've located it correctly. (i think the one that they identified is the Pumwani site, and not the Mukuru Kwa Njenganow one that we are designing for). Now, if only AFH will do something to reconfirm

Kdandre, I love you!
Beside the already mentioned buildings, we can see half a mile to the NE the high ones that appear on the horizon on the pictures taken from the back of the site.
Regarding the form, yes, it seems the provided sketch was really just generally diagramatic!

I've made a public map on google, so nobody can call us mean: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&msa=0&ll=-1.32012,36.88...

kdandre: i´m completly sure you got it right. the surrouding buildings match perfectly with those on the pictures. well done
thanks

where are you seeing this on the google earth image? from what i can see all i see is metal roofs. i cant seem to locate the space in the image.

I don't know if this is correct, but I just went to the map listed on this site (http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/challenge/africa/map) and clicked the larger view (link at bottom of OAN map) to open a google map (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&om=1&msa=0&msid=11090597979...). Then I just downloaded the KML file (link at the top of the larger map) which opens in Google Earth. I believe this is the site. Is this correct?

yep, that is correct. kas

here's a SIDAREC video i found on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbrxO-gT9E0&eurl=http://www.openarchitect...

TO l8rpeace...the link u sent points to the Mukuru Kwa Njenga area as shown by the OAN but there's no site...
and ppl somebody pls SEND ME THE PAZPAL LINK!!!!!!!!

Hi,
This is Cameron, Director @ AFH, we just visited the site and took gps data and will be updating this page with images (we took over 130) and videos. For some reason I can't upload the kml file but I've attached site images with north point. The site is much more level than I had come to believe and MUCH MUCH larger. The folks at SIDAREC are totally cool with y'all taking down any buildings you need to.

Excellent Mr. Cameron!
I'm sure everyone is anxiously waiting for this update! I presume that's the reason this page isn't currently linked on the challenge's main page...
I also think it would be very interesting to know better about your impressions on the site, probably now you hold important information for the project. Wouldn't you mind to write a little on this?
Thank you very much, and have a happy new year!

is it possible to get site dimensions?

site dimensions would be very helpful... so far we are just basing our dimensions off of the small scale located in the bottom corner of google map images.