Kampala Innovation Campus
A low-rise campus for learning, making and the next generation of Ugandan founders.
At a glance
- Location
- Nakawa, Kampala
- Sector
- Institutional
- Value
- UGX 29bn
- Scale
- 6,200 m² learning space
Overview
The Innovation Campus combines workshops, teaching rooms, a public makerspace and a small incubator on a former warehouse site in Nakawa. The building is deliberately modest in height and generous in its ground plane, with a covered yard that functions as the campus's main room.
01 / The brief
The trust asked for a building that could adapt as its programmes changed. Classrooms needed to become workshops, workshops needed to become studios, and the whole building had to remain open and welcoming to students who might never have entered a university campus.
02 / Our approach
We kept the existing concrete frame and added a lightweight steel and timber upper floor. Services run in accessible ceiling voids, partitions are demountable, and the new facade uses locally quarried stone with deep shaded openings. Construction continued around a live workshop programme in the retained building.
03 / The result
The first phase opened in early 2025 and now hosts 600 learners a week. The retained frame saved an estimated 1,900 tonnes of embodied carbon and roughly 14% of the construction budget. Phase two is currently on site.
From the site
Nakawa, Kampala / 2025
“They treated a tight budget as a design constraint, not an excuse. The campus feels more generous than the money we spent.”
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