UJENZIBORA

Design and Build Contractor.

Category: Architecture

Architecture / Decision Making / Design / Inspiration / Man Cave / Ujenzibora / Woman Cave

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Designing for Humans- Why Men, Women and Children need Caves in a Modern House

Summary

Most design spaces confine people to the same type of space. This could be a result of cost saving or outright ignorance of the need for a proper balance of activities and spaces for men, women and children.Make sure that individual men and women also have room to flourish, in their own right, distinct and separate from their opposites.

Every house needs rooms for individuals to be alone but we neglect this and build Guest Houses for Guests who never come. This is strange. In terms of space, what is required to solve the problem? Simply, a room of one’s own. A place to go and close the door; a retreat. Visual and acoustic privacy. And to make certain that the rooms are truly private, they must be located at the extremities of the house.

Women Spaces
Naturally, life is a flux of the masculine and feminine and this is united in the children. However, if we are to design for growth and healthy identities, there is need to design for individual humans. A failure to design with this in mind has led to women feeling that the only space they have is the Kitchen. This is an technical injustice since society quickly picks up the design flaw with sexist remarks like, “A woman’s place is the Kitchen.”

To this debate, we would like to add a new proposal that other than a Bedroom or Kitchen, women need a special place called a Woman Cave. This thinking will go a long way in repairing the social tension between men and women.

43 She Shed & Woman Cave Ideas: The Ladies Answer to The Man Cave

A woman belongs everywhere, and every place inside the house is hers yet it is only very rarely that the woman of the house has a small room which is specifically and exclusively her own. In the book, A Room of One’s Own,” Virginia Wolf asserts, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

The things which can be done in the Woman Cave other than Vanity and Writing Fiction include Prayers, Wine Drinking, Thinking, Experiments, Cursing, Book Reading, Idling, Enjoying a Fireplace, Wearing Make Up and any other thing that offers rejuvenation of the Woman of the House.

The building of this exclusive space means we can no longer say that women belong to the Kitchen. The Kitchen is The Kitchen.

Man Spaces
In equal measure, men require a Man Cave other than the Car Park, Garage or Bedroom. This will diffuse the tension that comes with lack of a quiet place to Think and Reflect.

Many a man associates his house with the mad scene of young children and the enormous demands put on him there. If he has no room of his own, he has to stay at his office, away from home, to get peace and quiet. This is a negative behavioral response to a technical design problem.

Men need Workshops, Garages for Bikes and Cars just like women need Woman Caves and Powder Rooms.

A Simple Space.

 

Bookshelf by Ujenzibora Workshop

“The kind of place which is most closely suited to one person’s needs is a place of the utmost simplicity, in which only the bare bones of necessity are there: a place, built like a ploughshare, where every corner, every table, every shelf, each flower pot, each chair, each log, is placed according to the simplest necessity, and supports the person’s life directly, plainly, with the harmony of nothing that is not needed, and everything that is.” – Christopher Alexander

Teenager’s Cottage
To build a firm and strong identity of their own, children need their own private space. A place to keep their possessions, to play, to think and to discover their talents. It helps in the development of one’s identity

Ancillary Cottages for Old Age

Old age is a moment of dilemma to everyone. I see my clients wonder whether they can climb that staircase when the years finally come. And this is a valid concern. The solution is very simple: In your youth or mid-life, provide for it. You can build a little special outbuilding cottage which can contain within it a summary of your life, passion and ambition.

Most people are surprised that the few things that they care about can fit in a single cottage.

The Minima Cottage

An ancillary Cottage is best since psychologically, while enjoying old age, you will be receiving visitors to check you out but technically, you will still enjoy your independence. The cottage serves as a receptacle for receiving visitors who will introduce you to the new happenings in the New World. (When old, the world will be changing rapidly. Grand children will be a happy lot to re-introduce you to the new bold world.)

Independence is equally vital for your peace. A decent tiny houses compatible with a small income and reduced activity of old age that is make affordably, is sunny, near people and easy to maintain social contact is enough.

It is in old age that Children leave, neighbors move out, wives and husbands die and soon, the salad years fade away. It is important to prepare oneself for that inevitable time. You can gift the next generation your main house and stay close-by in your cottage.

What this means in practical terms is that you can build a Main House and rent it out for profit. A Main house that is rented out can afford to provide and sustain all the extreme luxuries and comfort of an ancillary cottage. This symbiotic relation is a work of long term thinking about the nature of life

Conclusion: Repair the World
Our overriding objective in building must always be,

“When you build a thing, you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole.” – Christopher Alexander

I totally agree with this line of thinking and believe that we can drop the pretense of building Guest Bedrooms and instead build Teenager’s Houses, Man and Woman Caves. Random Guests can easily be taken care of by nearby AirBnB Accommodation.

When the times are better, the home owners can build Ancillary Cottages as Outdoor Buildings. They can be used as Guest Houses or get repurposed at the right time. This is what it means to repair our world. It begins by looking at the reality of life, the masculine and feminine side of things and designing for it.

Kitchen, Lounge, Dining Room and Back Yards are spaces which don’t belong to any particular gender. By recreating spaces to reflect this reality, we are one step closer to repairing homes and making them more coherent to the users.

Related : 43 She Shed & Woman Cave Ideas: The Ladies Answer to The Man Cave

Architecture / Decision Making / Design / Design Brief / Green Building Elements / Inspiration / Lighting / Planning / Sustainable Design Kenya

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9 Ways Light and Windows Affect User Experience in Buildings.

This blog is about Ways in which Light and Window design can inform your thinking if you plan to rent, remodel an existing house or build a new house. We trust this insight will help you create a better living experience that is humane and alive.

 

  1. Indoor Sunlight: It is good to check out the orientation of the building with respect to the sun. A sunny room is a happy room! If the rooms are facing south, a house will be bright, well lit and cheerful. If the wrong rooms are facing south, the house shall be dark and gloomy. To achieve a better experience, let the outdoors face southwards

Orientation with respect to the Sun Path

  1. Rooms with bay windows tend to be more beautiful because they allow more light and help the room come alive by providing an alternative sitting space for family members while maintaining their presence and psychological connection with the rest of the family members. It is like an additional interactive space that compliments a family or living room. You may also consider having a slit window if you must have a solid wall.

Bay Window & Slit Window : The Minima House

  1. Go for rooms that have an elaborate window space. This could be a window seat, a wider window board, special ledge next to the window of an alcove that is on a wall recess covered with special glasses.

  1. Biologically, human beings are phototropic. You are more comfortable in light than in darkness and you tend to gravitate towards that side. However, one can play with the light to bring varying experience e.g. as one transitions from outdoor spaces to indoor spaces. Rooms feel less claustrophobic and lively with larger windows.

 

  1. High Level Windows: Where you have wall heights exceeding 3 Metres high e.g. for rooms with double volume, consider breaking the monotony with high level windows. Staircases are potential places for this since they vertically connect floors.

High Level Windows: Gatundu House and Zuri House

  1. Ease of Cleaning: Most kitchen windows that would be next to the cooker unit would be difficult to clean because of reach and oil film. See Annals of Bad Design: Stove Window

  1. A room which has no window place, in which the windows are just “holes”, is hopeless. A window should not only let in air but also visually allow occupants/users to connect with the outside world. The “energy” should flow

 

  1. Internal Windows: Sometimes you might have walls between rooms. Adding windows helps the rooms become more alive by creating more views of people and illuminating dark corners. Fully glazed fixed windows will do.

Internal Window: Gatundu House

  1. It is hard to talk to a silhouette. If you make the windows too large, at about a distance of 4 to 5metres, the person on the opposite side will not see facial expressions. Unfortunately, this mistake will only be noticed after the fact

Architecture / BUILDING SOLUTIONS / Business / Cost Information / Estimating

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What is Affordable Housing?

There is a maxim of law which states,

“The word is not the thing it represents but gets its meaning from its use“

Early this week, I made a request to a company selling “Affordable housing” and I did receive a quotation of Kshs. 66,000.00 per Square Metre! In other words, a simple 3 Bedroom House of 120 Square Metre in floor area would have cost me approximately Kshs. 7,920,000.00 according to my back-of-the-hand calculation using their rates. And believe you me, the Key Player calls that affordable!

In the same period, I was pricing a Bills of Quantities for a four storey house in Kisumu County and the cost came to about Kshs. 44,000,000.

Why this talking point?

There is vagueness that exists in perception of what is “Affordable Housing”. The vagueness creates room for manipulation and uncertainty both at the policy level and amongst the providers of housing solutions.

In this regard, we wish to clarify and propose a more straight way of looking at things.

Affordable Housing is an Expansive Word not Descriptive!

The word “affordable” is so expansive as to include Ministers affording Palaces, Celebrities affording luxurious real estate, Paupers and Peasants affording homes and the like. The Government built the Official Residence of the Vice-President at a cost of Kshs. 400,000,000.00 because it was an Affordable Presidential Housing. Of course, the tax payer could afford it! You see the absurdity of the word Affordable?

The danger is in including every other Tom, Dick and Harry as to permit expansion of the word affordable. The word is as expansive as words like Mammals, Dinner, Furniture and Persons (Which Lawyers say includes natural persons and legal persons). Dinner includes all categories of food that could be served and Affordable includes every human that can be housed each at his/her own cost.

It is a word that requires qualification. One must state whether the house is affordable to the Poor or affordable to the Middle Class or Affordable to those who can afford anything.

Ordinary Sense of the Word

In the ordinary sense, it means less expensive and reasonably priced. It comes from the word “afford” and “ability” which means “manage to buy or maintain; have enough money (to do something)”. We can therefore state that the word “Affordable Housing” includes all classes of people and the choice is left to the beholder on whether the price is fair or on whether they have capacity to buy and maintain.

 

Since society is divided into two distinct classes that are shifting and intermeddling, that is the poor and the rich. A descriptive word for a House Type benchmarked on Income or Financial Capacity cannot be left to be Expansive! We should say we have 3 or 4 types of broad categories of house types:

  1. Affordable Public Housing like the VP’s Home, Prisons and Kibera Slum Upgrading Units which our taxes can “Afford”
  2. Low-Cost Housing
  3. Middle-Income Housing and
  4. Luxury Housing

The houses our fathers and mothers lived in as Maasai Domes, Rammed Earth and Makuti thatched houses were Affordable Houses! Half the population does not know what the Building Industry means when we say we provide “Affordable Housing”. We live in a world where strings of Propaganda and Advertising create endless illusions.

I think the time for blanketing every other structure as an “affordable” housing is up. Where are the real Architect-Citizens  who can offer real solutions?

However, I must admit this is a thorny issue. We have among us the rich who pose as the poor (Kings on barefoot) and the Poor who pose as the Rich (Footmen on Chariots). Between the two classes, an endless debate and struggle!

Whatever the case, something needs to be done to address the issue of current high market prices and few choices for home buyers.

What are your thoughts?

–          Qs. Nahinga

 

Architecture / Construction Management / Cost Information / Project Management / Quantity Surveying

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Basic Factors to Consider When Cost Planning Your Building Project

The general premise I would wish to take emanates from the intriguing question, “If a man wants to build a house, does he not first sit down and estimate the cost?”

It is thus imperative that one needs to “sit down” and contemplate or wrap his mind around the entire building project to determine whether it is worth his while to embark on the journey of construction.

While undertaking Cost Planning for your building project, it is important to keep in mind that the final cost of the house will be affected by both Design Factors and Economic Factors.

Design Factors

The design factors like shape and size of the building, complexity of the design, circulation space of the building, the height and the structural design of the building will have a bearing on the final cost.

It is also worthwhile to note that the workmanship and quality of materials to be used as determined by the specifications will have an impact on the cost. Most persons wishing to build are surprised at how varying one item like the type of finishes can have a high impact on their construction budget. Every building material has a substitute which could be cheaper or more expensive but plays the same function.

For example, among Roof Covers, we have corrugated roofing sheets(Mabati) , Makuti and thatched Grass, Box Profile Sheets, Stone Coated Tiles, Clay Tiles and Shingles. All play the same function but are priced differently. They also require different levels of expertise which has a bearing on the final cost of roofing.

The one you pick will have its own specific cost implications like Timber Spacing, Initial Cost and Maintenance Costs. Read: Which is the Best Roofing Material?

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Economic Factors

There are other hidden factors that will have an effect on the final cost of doing the building project. For instance, the interest on borrowed funds and price fluctuations caused by inflations or market forces can affect an initial cost plan of a project.

The source of the building materials, that is, whether available locally or imported will also affect the overall cost plan. There are some designs that may necessitate sourcing of skilled laborers and this would add to the overall cost. Building with machine cust stones is cheaper than building with Bush-Hammered Stones. Read: Ujenzibora Guide on Walling.

Political Factors

There are Political factors in terms of how stable a neighborhood is or the safety index of a neighborhood. One can readily tell that a high-end zoned neighborhood where the development is controlled could be cheaper in terms of security measures to be incorporated in the cost plan but relatively expensive since one has less free-play in the design variables.

Upon completion of the design and comprehension of all factors affecting the cost plan, the tasks, timings and costs are summarized in a Developers Budget or a Project Baseline Plan that will set out for you the roadmap towards home ownership. The Developers Budget will have a breakdown of the following items:

  • Construction Cost
  • Cost of Land Purchase
  • Cost of Finance
  • Professional Fees
  • Legal Fees
  • Preliminary Costs
  • Management Costs
  • Marketing Costs (If Development is for Sale)
  • Anticipated ROI (Return on Investment)

The Construction Project Workflow will also be reflective of all the factors that will affect the Building/Infrastructure Project from Inception to Completion.

One truly needs to be meek and confident enough to “sit down” when it comes to making a decision to build a House!

I trust that in your meditation to build, you shall consider the aforementioned lest people pass by your incomplete Building Project quoting Scripture:

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he has sufficient to finish it?

Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,

Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”- Jesus Christ, Luke 14:28

Qs. David Nahinga

Twitter: @UjenziBora / @dnahinga

 

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