Instead, the client wants stalls similar in size to but greater in quantity than those in the next building. Because the work is easy, the architect settles for a third of due fees and proceeds to pack stalls into the allowable floor area without a thought of what might happen in the government or COMESA decides to ban Dubai trinkets and Chinese rejects – a very welcome move.

Suffice it to say that a (3×6) meter stall will garner about sh 1.8 million in goodwill and what happens to the business after that is not the landlords, or anybody’s concern. As to whether it is right to promote such trade where children cry because the toy broke after 2 hours is another matter.

Here, I am talking about the architect and leadership, which was abdicated sometime in the 90’s during Moi’s regime which must be restored to its rightful place, by doing things the way they are meant to be done, to benefit society, the user, the developer, the profession and the self in that order.
Right now, I am not sure if anyone benefits and in what order.

And then come those awful client/ architect trips to China for tiles, ironmongery and other things that could be manufactured locally to make a dent in our 60 % unemployment rate and stem recruitment of local idle youth into Al Shabaab who only come back to lob grenades into those same stalls.

Strathmore University actually had a seminar that included Ministry of Housing officials, appropriated technology and building materials department and slum-upgrading, no less, euphemistically entitled “What we can learn from the Chinese” or words to that effect. I attended only to find that it was about how best to procure building materials from China.
After listening to the proceedings on how to procure the right Chinese guide, lower import duty and other things unrelated to architecture, my contribution was that my learning from the Chinese, during a short stint at the Moi International Sports Complex, was that the project leader planned, designed and drew all the 500 or so A-1 drawings and was right on site with everybody else as construction advanced.
That is what I have tried to do ever since.

The socio-environmental and economic fit, say, in Nyamakima- Naiorbi is very different from Phra Khanong-Bangkok, Aurora-Denver, Kivumbini-Nakuru or Falkensee-Berlin, the degree to which can only be determined by the studies earlier mentioned.
What is certain, however, is that if architectural design was practiced in the way implied here, there would be no glass towers in Nairobi at all. And it is not about aesthetics per se, but nation building on solid foundations.

While we are at it, a read of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Deveil On The Cross by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho might give some useful pointers.