Re Thinking African Housing / Tanzania

Client: Archstorming

Partners: Darina Procopciuc, Estera Badelita, Kevin Ferenzena

Tanzania suffers from a terrible shortage of good quality and affordable housing. So dire is this shortage that the nation currently carries a 3 million housing deficit coupled with a 200.000 unit annual demand. Over seventy percent of its urban residents live in unplanned and unserviced informal settlements. With that in mind, The African House is a housing design to be implemented not only in Tanzania but also in other African countries where housing is an increasing problem.

Only 15 percent of household in Tanzania have electricity, with a very a large disparity between urban and rural households in Mainland Tanzania (45 percent and 3 percent respectively). Two in three households in Tanzania (67 percent) live in a dwelling with earth, sand or dung flooring. Cement flooring only accounts for 30 percent of households.

With an ever-increasing urban population, 5.7 percent to 22.6 percent over the period 1967-2002, based on 2002 census data, it is inevitable that this shortage, which is compounded by lack of long-term housing finance and a lack of a formal residential housing construction sector, needs to be addressed in a timely manner. In order to do so, this competition project explores efficient and economic ways to build houses in Africa. The Jorejick family, located near Karatu, Tanzania are the first ones we help.

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