Description
Tanzanian architect Anthony B. Almeida, born in 1922 in Dar es Salaam to Indian immigrants from Goa, stands as a stalwart in East Africa’s architectural landscape. Having studied architecture in Bombay, India, he returned to his then British-ruled home country Tanganyika in 1948 to establish his own architectural practice in Dar es Salaam. During over sixty years of practice, Almeida has amassed a remarkable oeuvre; when he passed away in 2019 at the age of 98, he is said to have completed over 400 buildings throughout East-Africa, establishing him as one of the region’s most accomplished and active architects.
His own residence, situated in the affluent neighbourhood of Masaki, a peninsula just north of Dar es Salaam’s centre, is a testament to his commitment to adapting modern architecture to the tropical climate. In the early 1960s, when Almeida conceptualised the home for his young family, the area was predominantly agricultural, affording him full freedom in design, detached from urban constraints. The architectural idea behind the residence prioritises harmony with the tropical environment. Positioned just off the Indian Ocean and adjacent to Coco Beach, a constant cooling breeze prevails, despite the year-round heat and humidity. Three slender, single-storey volumes, varying in height, are arranged around a garden, an enclosed landscaped courtyard shielded from the street. The two structures closer to the sea adapt to the sloping terrain, while the third is elevated on stilts overlooking the former. This arrangement ensures that the cooling sea breeze permeates every corner of the house and all rooms share the panoramic ocean views.
The residence features small, partly covered courtyards strategically integrated into and between the building volumes, blurring the boundary between indoor and outdoor spaces. Paths connecting different areas of the house predominantly traverse open-air sections, creating a seamless transition between the lush exterior and the sheltered interior. A characteristic quality of Almeida’s design is the meticulous consideration given to natural ventilation. All enclosed rooms, regardless of their location within the structure, incorporate air inlets on the windward side and outlets on the leeward side. Arranged diagonally, both in plan and section, these openings facilitate the uninterrupted flow of air throughout the rooms, harnessing the thermal effect for cooling. This design strategy, more easily achieved in the lower, single-layer segments of the building, is ingeniously repeated in the back by raising the rear section, where a subtle vertical offset between room layers allows fresh air to circulate efficiently throughout the family bedrooms.
Much like the overall architectural composition, the building’s facade demonstrates strategic climate-responsive design, layering different permeable elements designed to shield from the sun and manage airflow: an in-situ concrete apron extends vertically along the roof’s edge, connected to the supporting structure through minimal concrete spikes at specific points. This feature not only protects the facade from the intense equatorial sun but also facilitates the upward flow of rising hot air between the strip and the building volume. A vertical brise-soleil layer, composed of cylindrical fibre-cement rings, covers all window openings. Unlike Ernst May, whose cultural centre in Moshi reacts differently to shading and ventilation needs in each façade, Almeida’s invention of the cement rings responds to all cardinal directions; the rings effectively block both laterally incident and steep top sunlight with the same façade design, thus unifying the staggered building volumes into an architecturally distinctive constellation with recognisable visual appeal.
Remarkable are also the innovative ceilings, featuring hollow clay elements set in concrete, minimising unnecessary thermal mass and allowing for exceptionally flat construction and efficient use of materials. The consistent use of concrete in the construction of Almeida’s buildings, including this one, goes beyond mere adherence to modern principles. It was a deliberate, even logical choice. Cement factories had been in operation in Dar es Salaam since British colonial times, and sand was abundant in many regions of Tanzania. This, as Almeida has wryly noted, made concrete the most local and most easily available of modern building materials.
Almeida’s own residence, meticulously attuned to the tropical climate, is representative of his architectural approach. While allegedly guided by functionalist design decisions only, the architect harnesses climatic, programmatic and contextual conditions to respond to a design brief with a very specific, often highly aesthetic design.
References
Maganga, M. (24 April 2021). “The Legacy of Modernist Architecture in Tanzania: Anthony Almeida and Beda Amuli“. ArchDaily. https://www.archdaily.com/960564/the-global-legacy-of-modernism-in-tanzania?ad_medium=gallery
Mosha, L. H. (2018). “Historical Paradigms of Architects Le Corbusier and Anthony Almeida on Modern Architecture and City Planning with an Overview of Dar es Salaam – Tanzania“. International Research Journal of Advanced Engineering and Science, Volume 3, Issue 2, pp. 323–331.
Seifert, A. and Klix G. (2012). Hitzearchitektur. Lernen von der afrikanischen Moderne. Zurich: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, gta Verlag.
Street view
Exterior courtyard
Exterior brise-soleils
Garden view. The climate-responsive design is characterised by several layers
Originally published in: Uta Pottgiesser, Ana Tostões, Modernism in Africa. The Architecture of Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Birkhäuser, 2024.