African Leadership University

In 2017, ALU reached out to MASS Design Group for assistance in developing a purpose-built environment to support this model. ALU piloted a small campus of 150 students in Mauritius but wanted to scale the model to deploy across the continent, starting with an initial larger-scale campus in Rwanda, which was to be included the Kigali Innovation City development—a government initiative to create a dynamic hub that co-locates tech companies, start-ups, and universities.

Through in-depth engagement with leadership, faculty and staff, and students, MASS developed a site-specific program, site plan, and design that create spaces to support students across each phase of learning. The result is a 70,000 square-foot campus that features student learning labs, collaborative study spaces, as well as larger shared university commons, and will house 1,200 undergraduate students.

ALU’s 100,000-sq. m.(10-hectare) campus features a 40-meter (131-foot) drop in elevation from the top to the bottom, which necessitated a design that steps down the change in elevation. To account for this, the design developed around smaller stacked and nested spaces, linked together around shared commons, creating a navigable campus that is both distributed and interconnected as it moves up the hill. The project grows up from the lowest level, stacking modules together—the roof of a classroom serves as the floor of a plaza above—to create new environments for learning and interaction in a combination of indoor and outdoor space.

The campus is organized into three connected spaces: the Learning, Social, and Enterprise Commons. These include student learning labs and study pods; a reception and greeting space for group gatherings; resource commons; a faculty area; a leadership center for events and presentations; a dining hall and food vendors; and a fabrication lab where students can prototype and test ideas

The site’s slope and the building's resulting terraced design necessitated a landscape design that would bring greenery and native planting back into the built environment. Every outdoors plaza, walkway, and gathering space has plantings, including trees and climbing vines that will continue to green the space over time.

But those plantings serve an additional purpose, which is to create permeability in the site to deal with stormwater management. Because of the steep slope, the stormwater management approach also includes a stormwater retention pond of approximately 1800cum capacity at the base of the hill, the water from which can be used for irrigation during the dry season.

MASS also contributed engineering services and developed the buildings’ seismically qualified reinforced-concrete frames. The frames were infilled with compressed stabilized-earth blocks that were manufactured on site; retaining walls are integrated with the frames as the building steps down hill. The bricks for the buildings’ light-colored façade were fabricated in Muhanga, 1.5 hours outside of Kigali; the clay bricks are sustainably fired, low-maintenance, and relatively weather-proof. Skat Consulting, Inc., supports and trains local brick manufacturers to fire the bricks using coffee-husk-fired efficient kilns.

Through in-depth engagement with Swaniker and the rest of the ALU team, MASS was able to analyze and understand the university’s unique educational model and the spaces needed to serve it. Analysis revealed that the students will only spend 3 hours a day in an actual classroom for facilitated learning, but 6 to 10 hours a day in individual or peer learning groups, ranging from 1-5 people.

MASS designed learning pods to accommodate these smaller groups and developed a grid to incorporate them with facilitated learning and social spaces to maximize learning environments. The maximum capacity for each larger work area was limited to 150-180 students—the number that had proven so successful at ALU’s initial campus in Mauritius—to maximize meaningful interaction and learning.

MASS leveraged its Lo-Fab methodology and approach in designing and fabricating key elements of the project’s furnishings, including tables and benches for common spaces, built-ins, lighting, signage, and lockers. MASS engaged with local artists who painted Afrofuturist murals, branded wall graphics, and provocative quotes from African leaders throughout the campus to provide moments of inspiration and reflection for students, faculty, and staff alike.