Harnessing Cultural Heritage for Locally Relevant Interior Design Solutions for New Apartments in Nairobi

Nairobi is currently experiencing a mushrooming of high-rise apartments in tandem with Kenya’s growing economy and expanding middle class in the urban areas. This phenomenon is keenly evident in historically low-density residential areas in the western part of Nairobi. It is a transformation driven by a high demand for housing in a city with a rapidly growing population and rising incomes. While these apartments contribute to alleviating the need for housing, their interior designs represent a missed opportunity for innovative and culturally relevant spatial solutions. They are reflective of global North perspectives on apartment living and material finishes. This paper argues that there is a need to re-evaluate how we approach the interior design of these apartments since the new apartments provide an opportunity to develop innovative and culturally relevant spatial solutions for interior spaces that reflect the unique identity of the local African cultural context in the global South. Relevance to innovation The paper introduces the concept of appropriate local cultural heritage as an important factor for consideration, and incorporation in the design process, as an integral basis for the development of more creative and innovative interior design spaces for apartments in the global South. The issue is explored through the discussion of new apartments currently under development in a neighbourhood in the western suburbs of Nairobi; the purpose being to provoke debate on ways in which the European-inspired apartment interior designs and finishes could be re-conceptualised to generate interior design solutions that are better suited for the African context of Nairobi.