Take a look at the way we build our houses in Malawi. Even the way mud huts have been built in the villages, for hundreds of years; where did that style of construction come from? Does anyone know?

I’m asking this question because while there are benefits like natural temperature regulation in some of the construction methods we have relied on for years, the way most of our houses are built in Malawi is not very efficient.

We build horizontally, and pretty much leave the vertical spaces above our houses unsed. Which when you think about it, is rather inefficient. Because we’re leaving all this empty space above our houses underutilized, when we could have built something there and added more living space. Even if it means adding a rooftop garden.

For comparisons, look at the way houses (or compounds) were built in ancient times in China for example:-

This is before electricity, when many countries had people who used to go around at night, lighting up lamps. Even street lighting in cities contained lamps, so you had lamplighters who were people who were employed to go around manually lighting up all these lamps 🪔.

Even as far back as then, other countries had arguably a more sensible style of architecture – than what we currently have in Malawi.

From the above, you can immediately see why the way we build our houses in Malawi is not the best way of building houses. I mean, some villages in India built in more creative ways.

Still a thatched house. Still built from mud. But it’s probably a lot more functional. And you get nearly twice the amount of usable space

In Malawi, we have a small country that doesn’t have much land anyway. Besides the fresh water Lake Malawi, our land is probably our biggest resource. So, why not build more efficiently and free up land for smallholder farms, or to build a bigger khola la nkhuku olo la nkhumba?

Maybe we should think seriously about why we build the way we currently do. And maybe that soul-searching will lead us to a realisation that as a country, we need to change the way we build the our houses.

Granted, in the past the cost of steel was a prohibitive factor to building vertically. But the ancient Chinese didn’t use steel. Neither did the Indian farmers of 150 years ago, or the Brazilian settlements of 477 years ago.

The Jesuit mission above was established in 1549 by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) under the leadership of Manuel da Nóbrega, who arrived in Brazil with the Portuguese Governor-General Tomé de Sousa to establish missions, churches and schools.

Right now steel is relatively cheap and you don’t really need too much of it to be able to build a stable and strong structure that can support multiple floors.

The block of flats at the beginning of this article sits on a piece of land that I think is less than 4 acres in size. But by my reckoning, i think it can accommodate at least 7 families. There’s enough communal garden space for every family to have a small garden – if they wanted to. There’s enough space for people to dry their clothes on a clothing line in the sun outside. To have chicken coops. It’s a closed compound, so there’s also an element of safety, for your goats, chickens and rabbits – if you decided to rear some. Your children could play with the kids of the neighbours within the compound without you worrying that they’ll wander off to somewhere they shouldn’t be. There’s even enough space for car parking at the rear of the building.

So, what’s our excuse?