Worthington Design | Kigali Master Plan - Worthington Design

Kigali Master Plan

Kigali, Rwanda. Africa

Worthington A + D is part of a larger team that is designing the Master Plan for Kigali, the capitol city of Rwanda in Africa. The client is the President, Paul Kugame, and the federal government of Rwanda. The design consists of three parts that have been woven together to make one Master Plan. The first is a Master Plan for a new state-of-the-art international airport that will function as the central hub of transportation for Africa due to Rwanda’s centralized location both East to West as well as North to South.

The second is for a completely new town center in close proximity to this new airport. This new, larger, and modern town center consists of a governmental center, a high tech center, a medical center, an entertainment center and a university center with the intent to bring Rwanda jobs, research, education and investments.

The third part is the upgrading of the existing city’s infrastructure where there are approximately 800,000 people of which 80% are housed in informal settlements. The strategy in this case is to bring in water, sewer and power to the existing fabric while minimizing the impact and destruction on the existing neighborhoods. For example, instead of each house getting water, we propose that there will be water stations at most a hundred yards away from the residence for the people to use, as well as grouped latrines within the same distance. These latrines have multiple purposes where the human waste is recycled to create both methane gas for the inhabitants to cook with as well as fertilizer to be used for the numerous crops that are grown there by the majority of the population. Our plan also calls for solar power and rain water catchments for clean drinking water.

Our intent is to design in a sustainable manner due to the lack of natural resources and capital that exists in Rwanda. Our team has also been asked to provide master plans for other cities in Rwanda as well.