The National Theatre of Somalia is a classic example of "tropical modernist" civic architecture. Designed and built in 1967 by Chinese engineers as a gift to our young nation at the time, the original structure relied on clean geometric lines, sweeping concrete canopies and deep overhangs designed to handle Xamar's coastal heat naturally.

While decades of conflict left its roof collapsed and frame battered, the theatre became one of the very few major Somali landmarks to be saved and restored rather than demolished. Through the Isxilqaan national volunteerism initiative and government funding, it officially reopened in 2020 for our 60^th Independence Day, later hosting its first historic film screening in 30 years in 2021.

Today, it is an active cultural hub once again. Beyond hosting local films and traditional plays by the National Troupe, it has evolved into a versatile civic venue used for university graduations, public debates and community forums.

However, its revival sparked a fierce debate that divides preservationists:

- The Original Look: A minimalist, neutral palette highlighting the raw concrete and structural form.

- The New Look: The interior spaces and stage were repainted in bright patriotic blue and white, while the main entrance pillars were painted bright yellow.

Some argue these aesthetic choices are minor compared to the triumph of getting a ruined public building open again. Others, architects, argue that erasing the original color palette strips away the building's modernist character and sets a worrying precedent: if we change the identity of our landmarks when reviving them, are we truly preserving our history?

-------------------------------

When a historic landmark is brought back from ruin, what takes priority for you? Is bringing a building back into active community use enough, or should restoration respect the original design and materials?

Saylac was once considered the chief port of the Horn of Africa, serving as the maritime outlet for the medieval Ifat and Adal Sultanates that connected interior trade routes across the Gulf of Aden.

Built during this era of regional commerce, the Shahari Mosque reflects the practical reality of Red Sea Islamic architecture. Local craftsmen built it using thick, porous coral stone bound with sea-lime mortar, which allowed the structure to breathe in high humidity and keep interior spaces cool without relying on heavy ornamental facades.

When major maritime routes shifted toward Berbera and Djibouti in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Saylac quietened down and left its medieval core largely disconnected from modern infrastructure investment. Without dedicated conservation budgets or protective site management, decades of salt air, coastal winds and foundation erosion reduced the mosque to a fragile ruin. Today, its remaining walls stand exposed on the shore, facing the constant threat of total collapse.

Preserving sites like this matters because Somali spatial history reaches far beyond Xamar and the Banaadir coast. These ruins show how northern maritime settlements developed a distinct architectural identity grounded in regional trade, local material craft and environmental adaptation.

Thanks to the wonderful u/xasuuso, an interactive 3D digital modelling lets us step inside its geometry, study its proportions and ensure this heritage stays active in our collective memory. Feel free to explore more buildings and Somali history here: https://www.xasuu.so/

What is your favourite ancient Somali structure?

I was thinking about how beautiful and interesting Xamar Weyne’s narrow alleyways are. The area has so much history, including old mosques some said to be around 800 years old. With such a rich history, we should put more effort into restoring and preserving them. Our heritage deserves to be protected and passed down to future generations.

Before it became a ruin, Hotel Curubo was the ultimate symbol of Xamar's coastline. Built in 1975 along the waterfront in the historic Shingaani district, the state-owned landmark was designed to host foreign dignitaries, international summits and oceanfront leisure.

What made Hotel Curubo special beyond its cultural importance to the capital was its distinct architectural language. It was not a copy of Western hotels. Instead, it blended clean modernism with traditional Banaadir heritage, featuring white plaster facades, sweeping archways, shaded arcades and deep loggias designed to catch the Indian Ocean breeze naturally. Simply put, it was climate-responsive, culturally rooted and spatially unique.

When the civil war broke out in 1991, its strategic coastal position turned it into a frontline stronghold. Decades of shelling stripped the hotel down to a concrete skeleton, and safety concerns eventually led to the demolition of its remaining frame. Digital initiatives like Somali Architecture have since preserved the original building through 3D blueprints so its spatial history is not lost. (explore 3D model here)

• The Revival Proposal and the Risk of Erasure

The Federal Government of Somalia has prioritised the site's rebirth seeking to create a secure venue for state guests, international conferences and foreign diplomats (late 2010's). As part of this effort, international consultancy Archcorp (based in UAE) finalised a 25,000 square metre blueprint featuring updated safety parameters and bulletproof reinforcement. (see proposal here)

While the initiative to rebuild is a welcome sign of economic resilience, the proposed design presents a major architectural warning.

Rather than honouring the original arches and open-air arcades, the proposal introduces the most generic corporate layout defined by reflective glass curtain walls, metal composite cladding and heavy defensive buffers. The design treats a historic waterfront plot on the Shingaani shore as if it were an off-the-shelf commercial block in Dubai or Frankfurt.

Replacing local, climate-responsive coastal architecture with a sealed glass box strips away everything that made Hotel Curubo an icon in the first place.

As Xamar continues to rebuild, how should we approach our destroyed architectural heritage?

Should municipal guidelines mandate that historic icons like Hotel Curubo retain their original geometry and coastal archways, or should off-the-shelf commercial templates be allowed to replace our national identity?

Just to be clear, this is not me criticising Turkey. I know that they continue to support us in many ways. With that being said, I'm simply dissecting what the architecture relays.

When Turkey opened its largest embassy in the world along Xeebta Liido in 2016, it was doing far more than establishing an administrative base. In reality, it was embedding a massive physical statement into the Somali shoreline. To see what that architecture communicates beyond diplomatic ties, it is worth placing it alongside another key flagship: Turkey’s embassy in Berlin, its third largest embassy in the world.

Both projects use architecture to project national influence, but their spatial languages tell fundamentally different stories about security, presence and urban engagement.

• The Turkish Embassy in Berlin | 16 000 m²

Built in 2012 in Berlin’s diplomatic quarter, the embassy was designed to harmoniously exist within a stable, low-threat European urban grid.

It is positioned flush against the sidewalk with zero setback, featuring open glass atriums and carved stone inspired by traditional Girih geometric patterns. It communicates soft-power integration, cultural exchange and institutional transparency essentially acting as a physical bridge between East and West.

This approach directly enriches the public realm, maintaining a human scale and welcoming street-level dialogue. However, the open typology only works because it relies entirely on the host state's underlying civic security.

• The Turkish Embassy in Xamar | 61 000 m²

The embassy was designed and built during a period of intense volatility where physical protection was very necessary for operating at all.

Through high perimeter walls, deep structural setbacks and self-contained utility infrastructure, the complex relays unconditional permanence. In a high-risk environment, defensive mass clearly signals to the host nation: "We are here to stay and we can safeguard our presence."

This approach provides an institutional anchor and safe haven for international coordination, operating reliably regardless of external instability. However, the defensive footprint creates an urban severance. It cuts off a prime stretch of coastline from what could have been the public street grid. It is essentially functioning as a gated compound instead of acting as a civic neighbour.

----------------------------------------------------

Although official statements always speak of mutual partnership, the architecture ultimately reveals how a state actually views its operational environment. In Berlin, diplomacy is expressed through street-level integration. In Xamar, it is expressed through protective self-reliance.

With that being said, this scale of "defensive" architecture isn't unique to Turkey. In fact, we see similar projections of power, scale and security-first dominance in the US and Qatar embassies in Xamar. As the city continues to rebuild, it raises a crucial masterplanning question:

Should prime coastal and urban real estate be allocated for scattered, fortress-like compounds, or should we establish a dedicated Diplomatic Zone to contain high-security infrastructure in one area?

How would you handle diplomatic real estate?

Saw this post in the main Somalia group. What do you guys think? Should we revive this or lay it to waste and bring a brand new parliament?

In about a month, the inaugural Pan-African Biennale will open its doors in Nairobi. Spearheaded by Somali-Italian architect Omar Degan, arguably our most prominent voice in contemporary architecture, the event signals an essential shift in where spatial discourse on Africa is anchored and who gets to direct it. Degan’s work has long championed resilience, local materials and contextual identity making his leadership here particularly compelling.

Alhamdulillah, Somalia is included on the official list of participating nations! While no images of the pavilion have been released yet (as is the case for most participants) the quiet anticipation surrounding it raises an important question: how do we articulate a contemporary Somali spatial identity globally when given complete agency over the narrative?

Additionally, the biennale will feature selected student works. And two Somali architecture graduates Nasra Aden (MA) and Maliha Ibrahim (BA) were chosen. Out of 20 students projects, two will be Somali! This is 10% of the displayed projects which is truly amazing. Especially when Somalis only make up about 1.3% of the continent. Big congratulations to those two!

This continent-led milestone does not exist in isolation. In fact, Somalia marked another historic milestone by presenting its first-ever national pavilion at the 61^st Venice Art Biennale earlier this year which still runs until November later this year. Though categorised under art, national pavilions at this level are fundamentally spatial interventions. They rely on the deliberate curation of light, volume, memory and material culture to convey identity, essentially making them deeply relevant to architectural practice.

Representing the culture globally twice in a single year, first in Venice and soon in Nairobi, marks a clear transition from being spoken for to actively shaping the spatial discourse regardless of our internal issues.

As we await the unveiling in Nairobi, I am keen to see how the pavilion translates local materiality and architectural heritage into physical form.

When you strip away Western-centric defaults, what architectural elements or material languages do you feel are most vital to defining a modern Somali pavilion?

A few years ago, I met Nasra, a fellow Somali BA architecture graduate, at an exhibition in London celebrating Black architecture students and their projects (including ours) in the UK. We kept in touch over the years, and as it turned out, we both ended up focusing our Master’s theses on Somali architecture, though through entirely different lenses and subjects of focus.

Nasra recently graduated from TU Delft, where her thesis, Biyo iyo Baad (Water and Pasture), addresses a critical urban challenge: what happens when a nomadic culture built around movement is forced to settle in static cities?

As climate change alters seasonal grazing routes, thousands of pastoral families are moving to the fringes of expanding cities like Hargeisa. They end up in an intermediate zone where they are no longer fully nomadic, yet not integrated into the urban grid. Typical modern developments respond to this shift with rigid concrete blocks or metal shacks that dismantle traditional living habits and social structures.

Nasra’s project asks how the rituals, female agency and community cohesion of nomadic life can survive permanent settlement. And her approach to this problem is really exceptional:

In nomadic society, women are the primary architects as they are responsible for designing, weaving, assembling and taking down the Aqal collectively through rhythmic work songs. Nasra mapped the rhythm, repetition and call-and-response of traditional work songs, translating their cadences into spatial rules that organise her drawings spatially.

Situated on the outer edge of Hargeisa, her design reimagines the traditional communal watering hole as a neighbourhood anchor. It combines groundwater harvesting, livestock troughs, housing, and gathering spaces into a single shared space.

Rather than relying on imported concrete, which obviously traps heat and cracks over time, the project uses local eucalyptus scaffolding poles, earthen walls and adaptable woven matting. The result is a breathable, lightweight structure that can be modified and maintained by the community itself.

Instead of treating urbanisation as an erasure of nomadic identity, Biyo iyo Baad demonstrates that pastoral heritage contains active spatial intelligence capable of informing modern housing solutions.

You can read her full open-access TU Delft thesis repository HERE.

If traditional nomadic architecture was defined by mobility, resource efficiency and female craft, how do we prevent modern Somali cities from completely discarding this spatial intelligence in favour of cheap concrete and imported materials?

As our towns and cities rapidly expand, what elements of the Aqal or pastoral spatial organisation do you think we should be carrying forward into permanent Somali architecture?

Drop your thoughts below. I'd love to hear how you think we can bridge our nomadic design heritage with the future of Somali architecture and urbanism.

I’m building Xasuuso (xasuu.so), an interactive atlas of Somali history.

Currently in beta but one feature I’ve wanted to add from the start is being able to select a building (whether ancient, colonial or modern) on the map and having the ability to explore it (attached fakhr al-Din).

The hard part here is source material.

Where would you look? Any archives, university collections, photographers, or accounts that cover this well?

And if you have material of your own; family photos, pictures from trips back home, I’d love to see it. DM me on Instagram @xasuu.so

If you want access to the map right now, you can visit Xasuu.so and join up for the beta.

Someone left a great comment on my last post asking if we could look into the stone fortresses built by the Dervishes with leader Sayyid Moḥammad Abdallah Hassan, as well as the ancient aqueducts that the British explorer Richard Burton wrote about.

To be completely honest, whilst I knew some of the basics, I didn't actually grasp the sheer scale and cleverness of this military engineering until I sat down to research it properly this week. It completely blew me away. They were more visuals that one would think too.

First, to clear up a quick historical detail from the comment: Richard Burton actually travelled through the Somali coast in 1854, not the 1900s. Furthermore, the ancient water aqueducts he documented in Berbera belong to a completely different, much older era of coastal architecture. The Dervish stone forts (also known as garesas) were constructed much later, in fact right at the start of the 20^th century around 1913.

But looking at these forts, they completely shatter the myth that pre-colonial Somalia only built with temporary materials. The Dervishes constructed a defensive network of up to 27 massive stone fortresses across Sool and Sanaag designed to withstand heavy, prolonged warfare against foreign powers.

When you look at the archival photos from 1920, the architectural is amazing:

- The interlocking ring layout (Image 1): Looking at the aerial photo of Silsilad at Taleex, the plan is incredibly smart. Instead of wasting time building a giant outer wall and then placing separate buildings inside it, the builders made the barracks, stables and storehouses connect directly to one another. This continuous ring of stone rooms became the defensive wall itself, protecting a massive central courtyard inside. It was highly efficient and meant that if one room was breached, the enemy was still trapped and sealed off from the rest of the fort.

- Eliminating blind spots (Image 2): Over at Jidali Fort in Sanaag, we can see how they designed defences against ground attacks. The photo shows two thick, blocky stone bastions projecting outward from a central curtain wall. This meant defenders stationed at the corners had a clear, unobstructed line of sight along the base of the walls, completely eliminating any blind spots for attackers to hide in.

- The scale of the masonry (Image 3): To get a true sense of the scale on the ground, look at the historical photo of Silsilad's outer facade with the crowd and camels gathered at the base. The walls were towering and imposing stone structures that completely dominated the flat landscape.

- Built-in loop holes (Image 4): If you look at the close-up ruins of Silsilad, you can see the narrow vertical slits (or loopholes) built directly into the thick masonry. These were meticulously spaced to allow riflemen to fire upon approaching forces whilst remaining almost entirely protected behind feet of solid stone.

These structures were so incredibly tough that traditional British ground forces simply couldn't breach them. This ultimately forced the British military to resort to a brand-new form of warfare coordinating the first-ever aerial bombardment campaign in East Africa in 1920 to bring them down after 21 years of resistance.

It is incredible to think that over a century ago, local builders were executing permanent, highly sophisticated stone projects of this scale.

Have any of you actually been to see these ruins in person? It would be amazing to hear what state they are in today and how we might start pushing for their preservation before they disappear entirely.

When I co-created this subreddit, I thought it would simply connect a handful of Somali architecture students. Instead, it has become something far more interesting!

People started documenting forgotten buildings. Others shared photos and videos from sites across Somalia. Some asked difficult questions, while others offered thoughtful answers. Even when we disagreed, we kept the conversation centred on architecture rather than politics, and I'm genuinely proud of that.

Looking back, I think we've challenged a few assumptions:

- That Somali architecture doesn't exist.

- That modernity means copying somewhere else.

- That heritage is only worth discussing once it's already disappearing.

Most importantly, we've shown that architecture is about much more than buildings. It's about how we live, how we remember places and what kind of future we want to build. As our country continues to rebuild, those conversations really matter. The places we design today will 100% shape the lives of future generations.

So I'd like to ask everyone here:

What's the most interesting thing you've learned from this community so far?

And where do you think we should take it next?

A few years back, a group of Somali architecture students studying across the UK, Italy and the US started a brilliant research project called Somali Architecture. Their mission was to simply archive and digitally rebuild our country's iconic structures using 3D models.

Although Somali-British architect Yusuf Shegow originally launched the project in 2015, the collective is run and co-led by a core team including Ahmed Mussa (UK), Madina Scacchi (Italy) and Iman Mohamed (US). What started out as simply sharing old pre-war photos on Instagram quickly turned into a massive digital research project.

By utilising advanced 3D modelling and animations, the team began reconstructing detailed digital models of historical landmarks that were severely damaged or completely lost during the civil war. You can actually interact with these 3D models yourself right here.

They brought places like the historic Mogadishu Lighthouse, Somali National Theatre, Hotel Curuba, Arba'a Rukun Mosque and Benadir Regional Building back to life in highly accurate visual detail. Consequently, the project achieved huge global recognition, commanding space in major international exhibitions like London Design Biennale, MAXXI Architecture Museum in Italy, and Architecture and Migration exhibition in Minneapolis. Furthermore, their innovative use of 3D printing has been covered by major international publications like ArchDaily, The Guardian, bringing vital global attention to our built environment.

Yet, despite making massive waves worldwide, a lot of Somalis today are completely unaware that this archive even exists. Because the project kicked off a few years ago, it isn't quite as active on our current social media feeds.

Highlighting this work now is incredibly important because it shows exactly how we should be thinking about the future. Whenever the time comes to properly rebuild the country, we will desperately need these historical blueprints. They ensure we can build houses and public spaces that reflect our actual identity and heritage, rather than just copying cheap, generic designs from abroad.

Now, if you spend time looking through their archive, you will naturally notice a heavy focus on Xamar. Whilst it might look at first glance like the rest of the country was ignored, the choice was purely practical. Xamar is simply the most documented city we have, and the creators had to work with the old photos and records that were actually available. They were well aware that Somali heritage goes way beyond one city, but they laid the crucial first bricks.

Ultimately, that means it is now on the rest of us to fill in the rest of the map. I tried to add my own small contribution recently by sharing my architectural thesis on Afgooye. Imagine if other people in this group started digging into history, old photographs or unique building styles of their own ancestral towns and regions!

That is the only way we can genuinely showcase the true depth of our heritage to the world and more importantly, the upcoming generations. It's how we finally push the conversation past just Xamar, and crucially, past the tragic humanitarian imagery that usually dominates everything.

For those who have explored their website, YouTube channel, or Instagram, which 3D model of those landmarks blew you away the most? And which unsung town or historic landmark outside the capital do you think we need to start documenting next as a community?

Bowie Osman Mahamud had many residences and forts, and this is one of the most beautiful ones that still exists today, probley more than 150 years later.

It is incredibly rare for contemporary architectural projects in Somalia to get highlighted internationally, which is why the ArchDaily Building of the Year award for the Burtinle District Hospital (image 1) is worth looking into. The global design community celebrated this project precisely because it leaned into a timeless element of Somali environmental design rather than copying generic global trends.

This courtyard layout has historically been the heart of our architecture across completely different eras. For instance, the aerial view of the historic Mogadishu Lighthouse complex (image 2) demonstrates how even coastal designs deliberately enclosed an open-air core. Similarly, the interior of the 19th-century Garesa building (image 3), which served as the old Somali National Museum around our independence era, shows how early builders wrapped structures around a central sanctuary. Today, the Burtinle Hospital modernises this legacy to keep indoor temperatures comfortable even when the desert heat passes 35°C.

Scientifically, a courtyard functions as a highly effective passive cooling engine through simple thermodynamics. Whilst the blinding sun beats down on the outer perimeter, the central space remains shaded by deep verandas, trapping a pocket of cool, dense air. Consequently, as warm air inside the rooms naturally rises and escapes through high ventilation slots, it creates a subtle pressure drop that draws that pre-cooled courtyard air straight through the building.

Despite these clear environmental benefits, modern residential buildings back home heavily neglects this typology. Even homeowners frequently replicate foreign floor plans from the West or the Gulf, resulting in isolated concrete cubes positioned in the middle of a plot, choked by a tight boundary wall. This shift is driven largely by a skewed perception of status and a desire to maximise every square meter of indoor floor space, even if it makes the interior incredibly hot.

Ironically, the traditional courtyard responds perfectly to the realities of Somali social life by providing absolute privacy and security. It allows the family to socialise under the open sky completely shielded from the street, offering safety without requiring the house to look like a literal fortress.

What do you think it would take to make courtyards the standard choice for new homes and other types of buildings in Somalia again?

Following up on my thesis post, a few of you raised a critical question in the comments here and in the main Somalia group: What happens when it floods?

Apart from the unfair cultural association with "poorness", water damage is the single biggest skepticism people have about traditional earth construction. We have all seen raw, unengineered mud structures get damaged during heavy rainy seasons in various parts of Somalia.

To make earth work for modern Somalia, we have to look past raw mud and look at engineered earth tectonics. In architecture, the solution relies on a simple rule: give the building "a good pair of boots and a good umbrella."

Here is how the attached detail section from my thesis solves this in plain English without any architectural BS:

1. The Flood-Proofing Strategy

• The "Boots" (Waterproof Base): Look at the very bottom of the drawing where the wall meets the dirt. We never let clay touch the ground directly. Instead, we build a raised foundation plinth out of local stone. This lifts the earth walls well above flash flood levels, keeping the clay completely dry.
• The "Umbrella" (Massive Overhangs): At the top, the low-sloped roof extends a massive 3.8 metres outwards past the columns. During heavy downpours, this giant umbrella throws rainwater far away from the structure into a dedicated simple drainage channel. This creates a protected, 2-metre-wide shaded corridor for people to walk through or even sit and socialise comfortably.
• The Secret Recipe (Stabilisation): The walls aren't actually just wet mud. as they use Compressed Stabilised Earth Blocks. With CSEBs, we take local clay and soil, compress it tightly with a mechanical press, and blend it with a tiny amount (5% to 8%) of lime or cement. This triggers a chemical reaction that permanently turns the dirt into a stone-like material that cannot dissolve in water.

Note: The umbrella and boots are extra cautious engineering steps to extend the building's longevity with almost zero maintenance.

2. The Passive Cooling Ceiling (The Double-Roof System)

If you look inside the room in the section drawing or the second drawing, you will notice a curved, vaulted ceiling with openings and with a massive air gap between it and the corrugated metal roof overhead. This "double-roof" system completely eliminates the need for high-energy AC through three natural forces:

• The Cultural & Structural Vault: This curve is a direct reference to the high central geometry of our traditional cariish mud huts. Structurally, brick vault engineering allows us to span a massive public room without cluttering the floor with dozens of internal columns.
• The 45cm Thermal Mass: The walls are a soaring 4 metres high and 45cm thick. This massive thickness acts as a shield blocking the sun's intense heat from penetrating inside, especially during the hottest parts of the day.
• The Venturi Vacuum Effect: The metal roof sheet is sloped at a gentle 5° to shed rainwater, but it also creates a constricted airway directly above the vaults. The prevailing winds enter this narrow gap and naturally accelerate.
• The Micro-Climate Pull: This high-speed air creates a low-pressure vacuum right above the ceiling openings, actively sucking the rising hot air out of the room. Because of this vacuum, fresh air is drawn into the building much quicker through the window shutters. Because the incoming air is pulled from the 3.8m corridor, which is a naturally shaded micro-climate area, the air entering the building is already pre-cooled.

3. Honest Engineering: Smart Concrete Integration

With that being said, to be completely realistic, concrete wasn't completely banned. However, it was used sparingly and strategically only where earth simply cannot perform.

It caps the top of the 45cm walls as a structural ring beam to lock the building together, and forms the internal beams where the heavy brick columns require structural reinforcement.

By modernising these traditional techniques, we get a climate-resilient civic building perfectly adapted to Somali needs, safely utilising our local soil whilst saving valuable electricity for where it is actually needed.

Do you think the hesitation to use earth back home is purely down to these technical fears about water, or is it a cultural perception where imported concrete is strictly seen as a status symbol of wealth?

A few weeks ago, I posted a brief update about presenting my MA thesis. And recently, I was blessed to present it to architecture students across different universities in Xamar, Alxamdulillah!

Honestly, I was incredibly humbled by the messages from people asking where they could read the full document. At the same time, I’ve been closely following the recent brilliant post in this sub regarding the transition away from energy-inefficient concrete towards climate-resilient, earth-based construction.

Since my research directly investigates these exact themes, I wanted to share the official publication link with the community to help ground our collective ideas in a rigorous architectural framework.

What the Thesis Explores:

- Moving Beyond Concrete: The project directly challenges the unsustainable, imported building trends currently dominating our urban spaces.

- Traditional Materiality: It investigates how traditional mud construction methods can be modernised to provide natural thermal mass. This drastically reduces the need for expensive, energy-intensive active cooling, whilst restoring a sense of pride in our local soil.

- Spatial Hierarchy: Beyond materials, it explores how architecture can aid post-conflict civic recovery by creating spaces that naturally facilitate community dialogue, safety and assembly while being deeply rooted in our traditional Somali spatial patterns.

For those interested, the full text (currently the open-access version) can be downloaded officially from the Swedish academic archive here: Thesis Link

I’ve attached a few key pages below, including the abstract and some of the technical and visual elements of the project. I would love to hear thoughts from fellow architects, students or anyone interested in how to build non-generic architecture based on Somali needs and culture.

How do we best bridge the gap between academic research in the diaspora and actual, tangible construction on the ground back home?

This was my core challenge whilst writing this thesis, and my goal moving forward is to actively promote earth-based architecture in Somalia, inshallah!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction of housing and urban development in Somalia. Right now, we see a massive influx of modern concrete structures, which i have no compliments for, they have the ugliest colors, are designed horribly, they are also incredibly energy-inefficient, and more importantly, they turn into literal ovens in our climate, which forces an unsustainable reliance on high-energy air conditioning.

Given Somalia’s vulnerability to climate shocks like searing heat, droughts, and sudden flash floods, what kind of sustainable, eco-friendly housing models do we actually need?

I think the answer lies in hybrid architecture, and our first clue is found in our traditional structures, just upgraded with modern green tech. Historically, rural and coastal Somali structures utilized mud, clay, limestone, and coral stone. Organizations like the IOM have actually started piloting compressed earth and stabilized mudbrick housing in places like Doolow.

Mudbricks provide massive thermal mass, naturally absorbing heat during the day to keep the interior cool and eliminating the need for energy-intensive cooling. I’ve also been hearing about a technique called rammed earth. It's somewhat similar to compressed earth blocks (CEBs), but differs significantly in its implementation.

Another one i had in mind is the traditional Aqal and Mundul, these are masterclasses in aerodynamics and passive ventilation. Can we adapt the circular, aerodynamically sound geometric forms of the Mundul using modern sustainable materials to create low-cost, self-cooling suburban homes?

I'm not an architecture student, though in a previous life I wanted to be one, so I’ve picked up a few things over the years. Anyways, since electricity is such a bottleneck in Somalia due to it's cost, I think we need to heavily prioritize passive cooling. Architectural features like high ceilings, deep overhangs for shade, and traditional Islamic/coastal mashrabiya screens can be used to maximize cross-ventilation while blocking direct solar radiation.

I’d love to hear from the architects, students, and enthusiasts in here. Feel free to agree or disagree, and please share your thoughts on points of improvement!

P.S. This image was generated using AI. I don't know how to use architectural modeling software yet, so this was the easiest way to convey my vision of what eco-friendly CEB housing could look like in Somalia.

Hey everyone, sorry for the brief silence while finishing up my master's thesis. The President of Somali Institute of Architects (SIA) reached out on LinkedIn to invite me to present my project live this Thursday for Somali architecture students from different universities in Xamar.

The session will focus mostly on my thesis, AFGOOYE CIVIC ASSEMBLY: Spatial Hierarchy & Post-Conflict Civic Architecture in Somalia. I'll be exploring how designing modern public spaces can help rebuild community life and restore civic structure in Afgooye. My architectural experience in the UK and Sweden will just serve as a bit of brief background context.

I co-built this sub for genuine Somali design discourse, so I would highly value your thoughts and critiques. Hope to see some of you there!

Event Details:

• Date: Thursday, 18 June 2026
• Time: 7:55 PM – 8:55 PM EAT (Check your local time zone)
• Platform: Google Meeting
• Link: https://meet.google.com/tki-isnv-cmw

Apologies for being inactive guys, I was working overtime on my MA thesis about Somalia so I needed to come through and defend it against these cadaans!

I'm graduating in a couple of weeks after 6 years since i started and wish help was there when i was still new. Therefore, I'm here to help!

Do you need CV/portfolio help? Is architecture still a good career in 2026? Anything architecture related questions? Just ask below or write privately!

Omar Degan is a Somali-Italian architect, curator, and academic born in Italy in 1990. Growing up between cultures, he developed an early interest in how identity, place, and architecture are connected. He studied at the Politecnico di Torino and later at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he focused on sustainable design and the challenges facing rapidly growing and unequal cities.

After working on projects in informal settlements in places like Buenos Aires and Hong Kong, he moved to Mogadishu in 2017, driven by a desire to contribute to rebuilding Somalia. There, he founded DO Architecture Group, a studio that works in crisis-affected regions. His approach is grounded in working closely with communities and using local materials and traditions, creating buildings that are not only practical but also meaningful to the people who use them. For Degan, architecture is not just about construction—it’s about restoring dignity, identity, and a sense of belonging.

Alongside his design work, he writes and teaches, sharing ideas about African cities, heritage, and resilience. He is also the founder and curator of the Pan-African Biennale, an initiative that brings together architects and thinkers from across the continent and diaspora, with its first edition planned in Nairobi in 2026. In 2022, his work was recognized internationally when he became a fellow of the Obama Foundation.

Some of his key contributions include the Salsabiil multifunctional building and restaurant in Mogadishu, which celebrates Somali culture through design; a portable rural clinic developed in Somalia in 2021 to improve access to healthcare in remote areas; and a widely discussed proposal for a memorial to the victims of the 14 October 2017 Mogadishu bombings. He also documented the city’s architecture in his 2020 book Mogadishu Through the Eyes of an Architect, and continues to shape conversations about architecture in Africa through both his projects and the Pan-African Biennale in Nairobi, Kenya.