Pan-African Housing Financier Shelter Afrique, a dealer in the promotion of affordable housing has officially announced the winners of its 5000 for 5000 Housing Competition. Launched at the 2016 Annual General Meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, the competition sought to stimulate and reward innovative thinking about how a liveable and sustainable home can be designed and produced at a capital cost of no more than US$5000 equivalent to the end-user.
Shelter Afrique would then commit to developing 5000 of these units across the continents over a period, hence the name. Over 120 submissions were made for the competition from various countries across the world.
in May of 2017, a panel of judges comprising housing experts from around Africa was convened to review the submissions, led by Professor Jerry Magutu of University of Nairobi. The panel also included Dr Michael Majale a Uganda based researher, Mamadou Gueye the Chief Operating Officer of Housing Bank in Senegal, Steve Rukwaro, a Quantity Surveyor based in Kenya and Nina Martiz, a Namibian architect.
The judges evaluated each submission against the following criteria; Sustainability, Practicability, Supply Chain Innovation and aesthetics.
The process produced three winners. Teteh & Associates of Ghana, Morphosis Limited of Kenya and Sharon Davis Design of New York, United States emerged winner and runners-up respectively in the competition.
Speaking on the competition, Managing Director, Femi Adewole, noted “Our new strategy emphasises innovation and large-scale development, two of the criteria for the competition, so this announcement is very timely. We were amazed at the rich well of ideas there is for affordable housing and indeed at the response to the competition. This shows that Africa is not bereft of ideas, what we need is better execution. We congratulate all the winners, but not just them, everyone who participated in this, because they have shown a passion and a commitment to affordable housing and we are always very keen to be associated with people like that.”
Others participants in the competition included Hydraform of South Africa, Adengo Architecture of Uganda, XTEK Systems of South Africa and Architect Collaborative of Botswana who were commended for the innovation and potential of their submissions.
Shelter Afrique intends to have the top ten submissions presented to their shareholders at the Annual General Meeting in July. A cash prize of $100,000.00 is expected to be shared among the first three winners.
