Traditional Swahili home disappearing as high-rises take over Mombasa skyline

• Rooftops that once stretched across neighbourhoods like a continuous canopy are giving the coastal city a recognisable identity.
• Viewed from a distance, the rooftops formed a defining silhouette that announced Mombasa as a city shaped by its distinctive Swahili heritage.
• The houses that characterised Mombasa for generations are slowly disappearing, making way for modern apartment blocks.

For generations, traditional Swahili-style homes have formed part of the character of Mombasa’s neighbourhoods, their distinctive architecture reflecting a way of life shaped by culture, family, community and the coast.

Their rooftops once stretched across neighbourhoods like a continuous canopy, giving the coastal city a recognisable identity. Built largely to a similar height, they created an almost uniform landscape, broken only by a handful of taller buildings, most of which barely rose beyond five floors.

Viewed from a distance, the rooftops formed a defining silhouette that announced Mombasa as a city shaped by its distinctive Swahili heritage.

Abubakar Mohamed, 90, says the term “Swahili houses” refers to traditional coastal dwellings associated with the Swahili communities that occupied the region.

He says the houses evolved in response to the hot and humid coastal climate, with their design allowing for ventilation, shade and cooler interiors.

“Their architecture was also shaped by the cultural exchanges that defined Mombasa over centuries, drawing from indigenous Swahili traditions as well as Arab, Omani, Indian and European influences,” he says.

The result was a distinctive coastal architectural style in which climate, culture and trade were reflected in the design of homes and the wider urban landscape.

But these houses, which have characterised Mombasa for generations, are slowly disappearing, making way for modern apartment blocks that are transforming the city’s skyline.

In areas such as Kisauni, Old Town and Majengo, houses that have stood for decades, some dating back to the 1940s, are being demolished as private investors seek to put increasingly valuable urban land to more intensive use.

In their place, multi-storey apartment buildings are rising, accommodating far more residents than the single-storey or low-rise homes they replace.

“The changing skyline is a visible sign of Mombasa’s growing demand for housing and the pressure on scarce urban land,” Mombasa resident and activist Julius Ogogoh says.

For property owners, redevelopment offers an opportunity to maximise the value of their plots, while investors can put more housing units on limited urban space.

The transformation is now visible both during the day and at night, as the sound of cement mixers and bulldozers replaces the quiet presence of the old homes. In some neighbourhoods, structures rising to as many as 15 floors are taking shape where family houses once stood.

An old Swahili house, with rooms traditionally arranged around a courtyard and walls bearing years of family history, can disappear to make way for a multi-storey apartment block. Where a handful of households once lived, dozens of families may eventually occupy the new building.

At first glance, the transformation may appear to be a simple story of wealthy developers buying up traditional homes. But residents who have experienced the change say the reality is more complex.

While some homeowners have sold their properties and relocated, others have opted for joint ventures with developers, allowing them to retain an interest in the land through ownership of units in the new buildings.

Mohamed Hussein is one such resident. Instead of selling his Swahili home in Majengo, he entered into an agreement with a developer that will give him six units in the apartment now rising on the site.

The more than four-bedroom family house where he lived for decades has already been demolished. Construction of the new apartment has reached the fourth floor.

“It was in 2022 when a developer approached me with two options: either I sell the property to him or we enter into a partnership. I chose the partnership because I wanted to retain an interest in the property,” he said.

Under their agreement, Mr Hussein provided the land while the developer would finance and undertake the construction.

“Once the project is complete, I will own six units while he will retain the rest. That was the agreement,” he told the Nation.

The joint venture agreement dated October 13, 2022, and seen by the Nation provided for the demolition of the existing Swahili house and construction of a modern block comprising 10 flats on the 0.0181-hectare property.

In return, the family would receive six two-bedroom units, with the developer retaining the remaining units. The agreement also provided for the transfer of the property to the developer upon fulfilment of the agreed terms.

Construction was expected to be completed within two years, from January 2023 to January 2025. The developer was also required to pay the family Sh1.5 million as rent during the construction period.

If the developer failed to complete the project, the family could issue a 21-day notice and, if the default persisted, extend the completion period or rescind the agreement, after which the property could be sold to another person.

When the Nation met Mr Hussein, he expressed concern that construction was taking longer than expected.

“I live in a rented house. I wish he could complete the building fast so that I may go and live with my family in peace,” he said.

Another resident, who requested anonymity, entered into a similar arrangement and now owns six units in the same area.

“I live in one and I have rented the rest of the five units to other tenants. They are all occupied,” he said.

He said he favoured the arrangement because it allowed homeowners to benefit from modern housing while also becoming landlords.

“While selling the property for once and relocating elsewhere looks attractive on the face of it, entering into a joint venture like I did makes it a long-term investment with more benefits from the income from the rentals,” he said.

A two-bedroom house in Majengo and its environs fetches at least Sh25,000 a month in rent, with higher rates depending on the location.

“This arrangement uplifts one’s standards from a simple traditional Swahili house homeowner to a landlord owning units within a modern apartment,” he said.

While Mr Hussein and others opted to retain a stake in their properties, others have chosen to take the money and move elsewhere.

Across Majengo, new apartments are coming up as old Swahili houses are either demolished or abandoned. Some owners have entered joint ventures and are waiting for their new units to be completed, while others have sold their properties and relocated.

“You see this house here; its owner relocated. He was paid by a developer who wants to put up a 10-floor apartment. Many of these old Swahili houses you see here have been purchased, and construction of modern apartments will begin soon,” said a casual labourer working at a nearby construction site.

One beneficiary of a similar arrangement said some homeowners were forced to make difficult choices as apartments increasingly surrounded their properties.

“I know of a homeowner who was paid millions by a developer and left to live in a foreign country. Others who were similarly paid after selling their houses moved to other areas away from the city centre and its neighbourhood,” he said.

He said his decision to enter a joint venture was partly influenced by the changing environment around his property, which had become sandwiched between apartment buildings, leaving little space and making the old structure increasingly difficult to live in.

The change is becoming increasingly visible in Kisauni, Kizingo, Old Town, Tudor, Makande and Ganjoni, among other neighbourhoods, where houses that have stood for decades are giving way to taller developments.

The transformation, however, raises questions beyond the changing skyline. As more people are concentrated on the same parcels of land, there are concerns about whether existing infrastructure can keep pace with the growth.

Sewerage, drainage, water supply, roads, parking and waste management systems designed to serve smaller populations may now have to support many more residents.

Dancan Odhiambo, chairperson of the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK), Coast Branch, describes Mombasa’s transformation as “informal modernism”, a process in which individual property owners drive urban change, often without corresponding improvements to public infrastructure.

He says rising land values, demand for housing and the commercial appeal of apartments are driving the redevelopment of traditional low-rise neighbourhoods into increasingly dense residential areas.

“High-rise development offers significant economic benefits, including increased housing supply and more efficient land use,” he says.

Mr Odhiambo, who is also the managing director of BSC Team Ltd, however, notes that the indiscriminate demolition of traditional Swahili homes risks erasing an architectural and cultural heritage that may be impossible to recover.

He says traditional Swahili architecture was not merely about aesthetics but represented generations of knowledge about living in the coastal environment.

According to him, features such as courtyards, shaded verandahs, thick walls and strategically positioned openings helped provide ventilation, privacy and thermal comfort.

“Modernisation should not come at the expense of architectural identity,” he says, arguing that new developments should incorporate elements of climate-responsive coastal design while allowing the city to accommodate its growing population.

He also raises concerns about infrastructure, saying many neighbourhoods were planned for much smaller populations and are now under pressure from increased development. Sewerage, drainage, water supply, roads and parking, he says, must expand alongside the buildings.

“Urban densification must be accompanied by infrastructure densification. We cannot continue increasing building heights and residential populations while relying on infrastructure designed for a different urban era,” Mr Odhiambo says.

He says Mombasa needs a comprehensive and effectively implemented master plan to identify areas suitable for high-density development while protecting neighbourhoods of significant cultural and architectural value.

The city can, he says, accommodate modern apartments without losing its identity through heritage conservation zones, appropriate zoning, protection of green spaces and contemporary interpretations of Swahili architecture.

“Mombasa’s future should not be defined simply by how tall its buildings become, but by how successfully the city accommodates growth while preserving its identity, environmental quality and liveability,” he says.

Architect Abdulnassir Mohamed of SYMBION-SML says the transformation is happening faster than the city’s planning framework can accommodate.

“From an architectural perspective, what we are seeing is vertical densification that is happening faster than the planning framework,” he says, noting that the shift goes beyond taller buildings to a fundamentally different way of using urban space.

Mr Mohamed says modern developments are increasingly maximising plot coverage, replacing the more open arrangement of traditional homes with repetitive apartment floor plates. A quarter-acre plot that once housed one family, he says, can now accommodate 30 to 40 families.

But he warns that approving developments individually can obscure their combined impact on neighbourhoods.

“We approve one high-rise at a time, but we don’t assess the cumulative impact of 20 high-rises on one road,” he says.

The architect says the answer is not to halt vertical development but to guide it through area-based planning and design standards. He proposes stricter protection for Old Town and its buffer zones, while allowing high-rise development in designated transition areas where buildings incorporate elements drawn from coastal architecture.

These could include deep balconies, perforated screens, courtyards, pitched roofs and coral-stone textures, alongside requirements for setbacks, ventilation, landscaping and improvements to the public realm.

Mr Mohamed also advocates linking new developments to infrastructure capacity, arguing that developers should contribute towards upgrades to sewerage, drainage and roads where their projects place additional pressure on existing systems.

“Mombasa can grow vertically without losing its soul, but we need to define what ‘Mombasa architecture’ means in a 12-storey building. Right now, that definition is missing,” he says.

To manage the strain that rising high-rise developments are placing on its infrastructure, the Mombasa County Government has stepped up efforts to address the pressures of rapid urban growth through its Vision 2035 blueprint and County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP 2023–2027).

It has intensified enforcement against illegal sewer connections, including identifying, fining and regularising connections, as it seeks to protect the city’s overstretched wastewater network.

The county is also pursuing a public-private partnership to mobilise the capital and technical expertise needed to modernise the public sewer system.

Authorities are tightening enforcement of structural and environmental requirements through joint action by the County Assembly and county departments responsible for environmental matters.

The measures are intended to prevent poorly managed wastewater and contaminated discharge from reaching the Indian Ocean while reducing the risk of waterborne diseases.

But as the bulldozers rise and the old rooftops disappear, Mombasa faces a broader challenge of how to accommodate a growing population without sacrificing the architectural character, environmental quality and sense of place that have defined the coastal city for generations.

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bocharo@ke.nationmedia.com

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