Really? That’s Waste?
My thesis explores how architecture can challenge systems of disposability, marginalisation, and spatial injustice through a community-built festival staged on Nairobi’s Dandora Dumpsite—one of Africa’s largest and most toxic landfills.
Taking place during the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-7), the RECLAIM Festival brings together waste pickers, artists, and UN delegates in a series of low-tech, temporary structures designed to provoke dialogue. Constructed from reclaimed and intercepted waste—including mitumba fabrics, tyres, and wooden scaffolding—the design reimagines waste as material with cultural, social, and architectural value. The central pavilion, composed of a performance pyramid, a shaded canopy, and a stitched mural tunnel, creates spaces for protest, storytelling, and collective rest.
At the core of the project is the belief that the process is the project. I developed a material and spatial methodology grounded in reclamation, atmosphere, and inclusion. Informed by informal construction methods, participatory practices, and performance-led design, the work prioritises experience, empowerment, and adaptability—ensuring the architecture remains accessible, expressive, and community-owned.
My key areas of interest include architecture’s social and political potential, material ethics, and the creation of spatial commons in contested environments. This project questions who architecture serves, who gets to make it, and how it can become a platform for dignity, resistance, and change.
