Introduction
Africa has been experiencing rapid growth with an average annual urban growth rate of 3.5% in the last 20 years, a trend that is anticipated to continue up to 2050, resulting in African cities expanding faster than ever before. This rapid growth comes at the expense of the continent’s ecological system (Rijkenberg, 2024), though.
We can’t escape from urbanization, however we can rethink how we design and inhabit our cities. Landscape urbanism, which is basically the idea of designing cities through its ecological system rather than through the design of its buildings (Balon et al., 2023), gives us the opportunity to shape our cities in ways that work with nature, not against it.
If we want to build cities that are truly resilient and reflective of the unique African contexts, we need to adopt this type of thinking as African architects and urban planners.
Understanding context-specific design and how it can be adapted in landscape urbanism
In order to design cities that will flourish in the long run, we need to understand the context in which we are designing. In essence, context-specific design is all about developing solutions that are tailored to fit a given environment and the people within said environment (Sustainability Directory, 2025).
When you look closely at different cities around the world, there is always at least one site that carries a certain meaning or memories. This is as true for the Eiffel Tower in Paris-France as it is for the Pyramids of Giza in Giza-Egypt, for example. These places can also be ecological, like the Nyungwe National Forest in Rwanda, etc.
And this is where landscape urbanism comes into play–by responding to the memories and meanings carried by these spaces to treat nature as infrastructure. Nature infrastructure includes using wetlands as natural water filtration systems, vegetation for airflow and cooling systems, agricultural landscapes for limiting flooding impacts, topography as guides for settlement patterns, and so many more (IISD, 2025).
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| Figure 1 Nyandungu Eco-Park (wetland, ponds, vegetation), Kigali, Rwanda. Note. From Nyandungu Eco-Park: Rehabilitating urban wetlands to clean water and expand leisure amenities by C. B. Dingha (2024), Infrahub Africa. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. https://www.infrahub.africa/case-studies/nyandungu-eco-park |
Nyandungu Eco-Tourism Park in Kigali, Rwanda, shown in figure 1, is a good example of how wetland rehabilitation promotes both sustainability and resilience through working with nature instead of against it. The wetland was badly degraded by human activities before REMA launched its restoration in 2016 in an effort to show how urban wetlands are helpful in fighting pollution and flooding (Nyandungu Eco-Park, n.d.). This example shows how context-specific strategies can take Africa’s urban development from destructive–to the environment–to regenerative.
Culture as the foundation of sustainable landscapes
The African built environment goes beyond ecological landscapes and concrete buildings, it also has cultural essence. In many African histories, you will find important stories, traditions, rituals or myths that are associated with specific places.
These histories connect the people to their lands, yet modern urban planning often overlooks this living heritage. When you look at the Rwandan traditional houses, their circular shapes were a meticulous and intentional design decision that was influenced by their culture of community and the environmental landscape. Even the materials choices and structures choices had reasons behind them (Ndizihiwe, 2024).
We should not lose sight of these traditional values and cultures because learning from the past doesn’t necessarily mean we are romanticizing it, it just means we can learn from its wisdom with what worked then that can be incorporated into modern designs.
Founding sustainable landscapes on culture isn’t just about borrowing from the past, though. Culture is what gives us our unique identities, and allows us to express ourselves in our individuality and communities. Our spaces should be designed to allow room for that without disrupting the ecological system.
Integrating technology with ecology
We are moving in a fast-paced world where technology is always evolving and if we don’t regulate it to go hand in hand with ecology, we risk destroying our environment further. Today, thanks to the use of GIS mapping, and the likes of such tech, architecture has soared higher than ever before, not just in planning but also in designing and translating in the daily use of spaces.
The good news is that tech off ers so many opportunities for reimagining urban landscapes and infrastructure. With tools like smart sensors available to use in designs, we can reduce energy usage and wastage among others, and with adequate facilities we can go green with renewable energy systems (Khandelwal, 2022).
The opportunities are endless, but the question remains: how do we adapt and localize these technologies to fi t each unique context in a way that does not disrupt our ecology? This means that there are design decisions that should be made way before we even conceptualize the designs themselves.
Designing resilient landscapes and built environments
Let me take you back to the Nyandungu Eco Tourism Park for a moment. This park that used to be a degraded wetland is now an ecosystem that not only fi lters water and restores biodiversity,but also off ers relaxation and recreation for both locals and tourists (Nyandungu Eco-Park, n.d.).
Resilience is both environmental and social. Understanding that is the fi rst step in creating spaces that can withstand the test of time. Our designs should not just celebrate the environment and the community, they should protect these ecosystems while also improving the lives of the people who live in, work in, or even just visit them through said ecosystems through initiatives like planting trees that can help the land on which they are planted while giving fruits for the people on that land for example.
Conclusion
As Africa undergoes urbanization, we have the rare opportunity to shape how our cities will look in the future. Through balancing nature and the built environment, landscape urbanism offers the perfect path towards building sustainable cities that are grounded in context-specific designs, culturally sensitive spaces, tech-driven designs, and resilient built environments.
If we learn to work with nature and not against it, we will end up with cities that breathe life and that can sustain our own for generations to come.
About the author
Bénitha Mugiraneza is an aspiring architect and writer from Rwanda passionate about landscape urbanism. Through her blog, she explores how cities can live and grow in harmony with nature through dissecting the intersection between landscape architecture and urban design. Read more of her reflections on design and urbanism at www.atelierblooming.com