Manda island in Kenya belongs to the Lamu Archipelago – cradle of the Swahili culture. The island was abandoned in the 19th century for lack of freshwater, and recovered in the late 20th as an eco-tourism destination.

The brief for Falcon House asked for an off-grid residence integrated in the landscape and invisible from the sea. The volume is fragmented in several pavilions allowing the winds – Kaskazi from northeast and Kusi from south – to cross the rooms, screened by adjustable wooden louvers. Pavilions and terraces are raised on stilts, connected by a linear walkway and arranged to avoid interferences with existing acacia and baobab trees. The rooms are shielded by a flat concrete roof, insulated on the outer layer, supporting a ventilated canopy of corrugated core-ten steel, designed to keep the rooms shaded all day. Floors are in polished concrete, while the back wall is made from on-site prefab concrete blocks, created by local craftsmen using custom wooden formworks. The shaded and ventilated concrete mass acts as a thermal flywheel.

The project includes an old swahili house of white choral stone, refurbished and extended, and a service building with photovoltaic panels, battery room, desalination system, and water tower...