Kigali Convention Centre as a strategic urban project

In an ideal field of Urban Design, the starting point to discuss an urban project, normally bears in mind the geographical contextual of the given city, its demands and suggestions, to interpret how the introduction of architectural elements, their foam and language impact the specific sites. Through this lens, the complexity of the work being carried out rather than a rational simplification of the urban structure is upheld. This way, Urban Design’s key objective becomesthe redefinition of urban forms towards ensuring a boost to the quality of urban life, which consequently addresses multifaceted problems of the city. This is where strategic urban projects enter the fore; they take different and variable forms, which seek to address a number of issues with regards to social, economical, environmental and cultural sustainability of the city. In the European context for example, the concept of strategic urban projects was introduced in cities in the 19th century to address problems declining economies, blightedneighbourhood and the need for urban renewal and revitalisation. Spanish urbanist Joan Busquets in his writing on ‘Urbanism at the turn of the century’ states that over the last twenty years, the urbanproject has become consolidated as an effective trend for focusing urbanproblems on an intermediate scale. Now, wearing this lens and trying to (re)read the Kigali ConventionCentre is both challenging and fulfilling. As a starting point, KCC is a perfect example of a strategic urban project which beyond a peculiar architectural addition to Kigali’s townscape, can be seen to solve a couple of other multifaceted issues in Kigali city. KCC touches our visual and mental comforts on the scale and nature of execution of urban projects in Kigali; The pace of KCC’s project execution the past 6 months is still unbelievable, it sits 6 Km away from the city’s CBD and yet imposes its presence so powerfully in the territory, it has given employment to several thousands of Rwandans and expatriate staff in especially the final leg of its execution. The innovation in its visual and spatial permeability impacts positively on its surrounding areas – the night view is breathtaking. Indeed KCC confronts our varyingunderpinningsof the idea of urban projects and how they relate to the city, which renders it a fundamental project. KCC has offered the city of Kigali and the wider region a good example of ‘integration’ between infrastructure and thecity, between public and communal spaces, between architecture and services, which are all key in the success of a strategic urban project. It consistently compels us to think about the relationships- the inter and intra-‘betweens’- of things and their different components, and above all, gives Rwanda strong base to sustain her ambition,urban ideas and the vision 2020 with firm believe that the construction sector still holds an amazing potential and role in the transformation of cities. To me, this is where KCC’s strength lies. It attempts to balance and find congruence between the several critical elements that add up to a comprehensiveproduction and use of urban forms of the city. To follow up on the qualification of KCC as an urban strategic project, it is important to highlight a preliminary range of variables necessary to keep it within focus in terms of the ability to continuously and positively effect change on the economic, physical and environmental landscapes whilst responding to territorial effects and ongoing transformations in the city. To always allow room for an integrated framework sensitive to contextual issues and re-existing conditions in direct proximity to the project in order not to impose an unrealistic vision, which on turn would frustrate the success of the project and go against the grain of the wider city’s vision 2020. Furthermore, Busquets has suggested twelve key themes and potential planning strategies that have already been applied through theexperiences of a number of projects in different contexts to address the problems of the modern urban culture, that could come in hand in the case of KCC. They are strategies that: incorporate infrastructures and development while respecting their interdependence, work with the context, promote mixed use as a guarantee of urban quality, highlight the city of the past as a fundamental constituent of the present, reinforcing or clarifying the Urban Morphology of the city, promote densification in urban development, re-establish the relation to natural geography, restructure the existing city, using urban public space to reactivate the city, modulate mobility in urban space and that strategies of city design have to be multiple and in short, mid, and long term phases. Some of the strategies outlined above that have already been utilised in the KCC project such as working with the context, infrastructure development around the site which saw new circulation routes and roundabouts for ease of accessibility to both the project and neighbourhood, the promotion of densification and mixed use programs in the project by combining convention and hotel facilities as a guarantee of the urban quality, the evident state of the art convention facilities which were a strong focus of the development and strategies for achieving socio-economic sustainability future in the mid term, seen through the commitment towards creating employment and meeting spaces. In conclusion, although development is still new and currently hosting its first ever function- the AU summit, the KCC can be said to have achieved success in terms of its overall development aims. The project has addressed a number of problems in the city and innovatively combined a wide range of spatial and social interventions during its execution towards social, economical, environmental and cultural sustainability and lastly, the resulting revitalisation of its immediate neighbourhood and Kigali city at large is a plus. The writer is a lecturer at the school of Architecture, University of Rwanda. An architect and urban designer with keen interest on the dialectical relations between Architecture and Society. josemwongeli@yahoo.com

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Kigali Convention Centre as a strategic urban project