SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities, aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Some of its indicators include strengthening efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage, and to ensure access for all to adequate, safe, and affordable housing. 

Balmoi Abe, a trained architect and the Founder and Executive Director of Mambo Heritage, aligns with these indicators through his work. He was born in Kenya to a Kamba mother and an Acholi father, from Northern Uganda. His father had been on the run during Idi Amin’s regime, and subsequently during Yoweri Museveni’s time. When Balmoi was six years old, his parents decided to relocate the family to the Netherlands. 

Discovering his Passion 

During a primary school trip to Amsterdam, Balmoi visited the Anne Frank Museum. The museum once housed the Jewish Frank family for two years, when they hid in its attic during the German occupation of the Netherlands. The young boy marvelled at the fact that eight people were able to hide in a building that also operated as a warehouse. As he walked around the museum, he wondered what would have happened in his father’s hometown in Northern Uganda; where would families have hidden in such times of conflict? To him, such a space would translate to a basement instead of an attic, because of the architecture prevalent within their community, and how they constructed their huts. 

This experience spawned Balmoi’s interest in architecture. It gave him an understanding of spatial design and how people’s behaviour influences the structures they live in. Many years later, he would go on to pursue his passion when he trained to be an architect at the Savannah College of Art and Design in North America. 

Homecoming 

Balmoi permanently returned to Kenya when he was 30 years old. As a self-described serial entrepreneur, he founded and co-founded many architectural companies including Incubator Designs, Design Village, and Cave Bureau. His latest venture, Mambo Heritage, was founded in 2020 and is aimed at building sustainable futures anchored in humanity and innovation. 

Understanding the fundamental importance of building structures that reflect the lives of the communities that will live in them, Balmoi and his team take an anthropological approach to their work, which they regard as the cohabitation element of cultural and community-centred design. This means that they spend time in villages, observing the livelihood of communities and understanding the model of their operations before commencing a project. 

True to its name, Mambo Heritage has been heavily involved in the preservation of Kenya’s national and cultural heritage. Some of the company’s notable restoration projects include the Karen Medieval English Cottage. Here, they repaired the building in line with English engineering techniques of its era. Another project is the McMillan Memorial Library restoration. This is in collaboration with Book Bunk, a Kenyan organisation dedicated to restoring the country’s public libraries. Mambo Heritage is working to physically restore the space while maintaining its historical integrity and technologically transforming it for use in the 21st Century. 

Apart from this, Balmoi is currently leading a project, under Mambo Heritage, to make Kenya a digital museum – going beyond physical structures to digital ones. Additionally, he is working on the Kenya at 60 Campaign and one of his aims is to address the reuse of redundant buildings in Nairobi City. 

Adapting the SGDs to work in the Kenyan context 

Balmoi recognises that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to a problem. Various issues and solutions can change after a 2km radius, and SDGs at an international level cannot capture such local nuances. This is why his work, which centres around finding solutions that work for specific communities and localities within the country, has succeeded in making SDG 11 achievable in Kenya.