Kenya has an affordable housing problem, with the World Bank estimating the housing deficit at 2 million units. The government plans to build 250,000 houses each year, but experts say construction and financing need to change and speed up for the deficit to be met. Some are exploring the emerging technology of 3-D printing for home construction as a solution. Jacinter Awino, 33, carries her son in the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya, Tuesday, May 28, 2024.
The government plans to build 250,000 houses each year, aimed at eventually closing a housing deficit that World Bank data puts at 2 million units. The plan was launched in 2022, but no data is available on the number of houses already completed. “This is where I have started living my life,” she said. “If I do something here, it is permanent. If I plant a flower, no one is going to tell me: ‘Uproot it, I don’t want it there.’ This gives me life.”
For home construction, some are exploring the emerging technology of 3-D printing. A machine layers special mortar to form concrete walls and cuts the building time by several days compared to traditional brick and mortar work. “If we want to clear that backlog, we need to build differently, we need to build at scale, with speed, and with low-carbon materials, and this is what construction 3-D printing makes possible,” Perrot said.
Nickson Otieno, an architect and founder of Niko Green, a sustainability consulting firm, said such new technology has great potential but remains limited.