Informal response to housing shortage in post-independent Uganda – any lessons for architects?

Abstract

Paper presented at the XXXIII IAHS World Congress on Housing, 27-30 September 2005,"Transforming Housing Environments through Design", University of Pretoria.

Uganda’s urbanization process has followed more or less the same pattern as urbanization in the other countries of sub-Saharan Africa. However, some peculiarities exist in the way the common people who have emigrated from the rural countryside in search for job opportunities in the cities have responded to the lack of housing for them, most likely because of Uganda’s unique land tenure system. Unlike most other sub-Saharan countries, most urban land is privately owned. The government does not own much land onto which rural immigrants could ‘freely’ settle as is the case in the other countries. This paper looks at the house types found in informal settlements in Kampala, potential for construction of storeyed buildings using locally available and affordable materials and space use and quality, as well as an experiment carried out in slum up-grading. Recommendations are made as to the potential for densification using modernist principles.