Winners emerge in Shelter Afrique’s $100,000 competition

The Pan-African housing financier dealing exclusively with the promotion of affordable housing – Shelter Afrique has officially announced the winners of its 5000 for 5000 Housing Competition. A cash prize of $100,000 is expected to be shared among the first three winners.

The competition was 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 $5,000 equivalent to the end user.

Shelter Afrique would then commit to developing 5,000 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.

A panel of judges comprised of housing experts in Africa was convened in May 2017 to review the submission, led by Professor Jerry Magutu of University of Nairobi. The panel also included Dr Michael Majale a researcher based in Uganda, Mamadou Gueye the Chief Operating Officer of Housing Bank, Senegal, Steve Rukwaro, a Quantity Surveyor based in Kenya and lastly, Nina Martiz an architect based in Namibia.

The judges measured each submission against the following criteria; Sustainability, Practicability, Supply Chain Innovation and beauty and aesthetic.

At the end of the process, three winners were selected. First place was awarded to Teteh and Associates of Ghana; second place was awarded to Morphosis Limited of Kenya and third place was awarded to Sharon Davis Design of New York, United States.

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.”

The judges report also singled out and commended Hydraform of South Africa, Adengo Architecture of Uganda, XTEK Systems of South Africa and Architect Collaborative of Botswana 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. Speaking on this, Femi Adewole noted “We have received a lot of interest in the solutions and submissions, some reputable universities and research institutes have made their intentions known. We are also receiving a lot of interest from our member countries; many them have initiated large-scale housing projects, we see our competition as a solution and answer to large-scale housing projects.

Shelter Afrique supports the development of the housing and real estate sector in Africa. A partnership of 44 African Governments, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Africa Reinsurance Company, Shelter Afrique builds strategic partnerships and offers a host of products and related services to support the efficient delivery of affordable housing and commercial real estate.