Tigoni House
A house that steps down a tea slope, so every room lands on a different level and none of them look at each other.
House
Built
2024
- 410 m²
- Concrete & cedar
- Full service
Between the brief and the building.
Mwanga is a small architecture practice in Nairobi. The drawing above is a section through a house in Tigoni. Drag it, and watch it become the house.This is a sectional model of a house in Tigoni. Slide it from drawing to building, turn it, lift its floors apart. That distance is the whole job.
Drawing
Built
The practice
Six people.
One drawing set.
We are small on purpose. The person who takes your brief draws the scheme, sits in the county meetings and stands on the slab when it is poured. Nothing gets handed to a team you have not met.
2014Practising since
41Projects built
6People
NCA 4Registration
Selected work
Plans, not
photographs.
A photograph shows you one afternoon from one corner. A plan shows you how the building actually works. Hover any of these (or tap, on a phone) to see it fill in.
How a project runs
Seven stages.
Two of them are queuing.
Most Kenyan practices quietly leave approvals out of the programme, which is how a "twelve month build" becomes twenty. We put it in, because you will feel it either way.
01
Brief & site
We walk the plot with you, read the title and the zoning, and write down what you actually want in one page you can argue with.
2 weeks
02
Concept
Two or three schemes, in section as much as plan. You will be shown the one we think is wrong and told why.
4 to 6 weeks
03
Developed design
One scheme, resolved. Structure, services and a real cost plan from a QS rather than a number we hoped for.
6 to 8 weeks
04
Approvals
County submission, NEMA where it applies, and the waiting. Nobody controls this stage, which is exactly why it belongs on the programme.
8 to 16 weeks
05
Tender
Full drawings and specification out to three contractors. We open the returns with you and explain why the cheapest usually is not.
4 weeks
06
On site
Weekly site meetings, monthly valuations, and a drawing register you can see. Variations get priced before they are built, not after.
10 to 18 months
07
Handover & defects
Snagging, as-built drawings, warranties, and one of us back six and twelve months later to fix what has moved.
12 months
What we care about
Three things,
consistently.
Every practice says light, space and materials. These are the three we will actually argue with you about.
01. Section
We design in section first
Plans get you the rooms. Sections get you the light, the height and the reason a house on a slope should never be flat. Almost every decision we defend is a section decision.
02. Cost
The number comes early
A QS is on the job from developed design, not after tender. It is unglamorous and it is the single thing that stops schemes dying at the last moment.
03. Materials
What is available in Kenya
We specify what a Nairobi contractor can actually source and a Nairobi mason can actually build. Imported detailing looks good in a render and terrible on site.
Start a project
Send us a plot
and a problem.
A title number and two sentences is enough to start. We reply within two working days, and the first conversation costs nothing.
We take on about six projects a year. If we are full we will say so in the first reply rather than three months in.