Prof Doreen Kyosimire’s rise to Uganda’s architectural pinnacle

Doreen Kyosiimire is one of the top architectural minds in the country today. She is the architectural designer behind BMK House in Kololo (the façade), Mbale Resort Hotel, Hotel Africana in Moroto, Kash Hotel in Mbarara, Hotel Africana in Zambia and many other significant structures around the country.

When she is not designing buildings, the firebrand architect and academician dedicates her time as a lecturer in the department of Architecture and Physical Planning at Makerere University Kampala, where for more than 15 years, she has taught Architectural Design, Interior Design and Basic Design.

Last year, Kyosimire graduated with a PhD in architecture. Her research looked into low-cost housing and gender, making her the only architect so far in Uganda with gender expertise in architecture production and education.

Body of work

Kyosimire’s body of work spans over years and countries. While she is an all-rounder real estate expert, her specialty has mostly been designing hotels.

Mbale Resort Hotel

Mbale Resort Hotel, the only five star hotel in the eastern region. Kyosimire was responsible for the entire project from site selection, architectural design, interior design, procurement of all fixtures and finishing products which she imported from China, Dubai and India. She was also the principal architect for Africana Hotel Moroto, Kash Hotel Mbarara and Africana Hotel in Zambia.

Navigating male dominated field

As expected, Kyosimire has experienced some gender discrimination in her work life, albeit at a nuanced level. She admits it has not been as bad as she expected initially.

“I believe it maybe because, when I joined architecture school, we were only six students; three boys and three girls. And we completed together. So from the start of my architectural journey, I did not experience gender discrimination. Actually the best student that year was a woman.

 Two of us girls were retained to lecture at Makerere University. Both of us were also privileged to receive common wealth scholarships to study masters degrees at the University College of London, one of the top universities in the UK,” she says.

Kyosimire says being superior to their male counterparts in school gave them the confidence needed and respect they deserved. By the time she started practising, she believed that gender was not that important as long as one knew what they were doing.  But the field turned out to be a bit different from the lecture room.

“I did experience some ‘boy builders club’ who made it a point to want to make fun of me; whistling, giggling and laughing. I guess they thought I was an affirmative action hire. They must have been wondering what this young girl was doing on site giving instructions. I first let it pass but when it continued, I asked them to leave the site. I wrote an instruction to the contractor that I would not tolorate disrespect. I asked each one of them to write a personal apology to me if they wished to continue working on site. The contractor enforced it and they did. From that day they treated me with due respect,” she says.

Another time, she travelled with a client to China to procure finishing products as per her interior design proposal. In the group of 10 people, only two were women. On the first day, they went to a tiles shop and the men who did not have the qualifications or experience in technical or interior design made all the decisions.

“When I went back to the hotel and thought about that experience, I went back to the shops and cancelled all orders from the previous day and made new ones according to my design. I reminded the client who although was a woman, was siding with the men that she had hired me to do the interior design work and to direct the procurement, because I qualified for it. I informed her that I would not accept any more interference,” she says.  Form that moment, the men stopped interfering with her decisions.

“As female architects, we need to have the right attitude. We must know that we are capable architects who love what we do. This makes me usually give much more than is expected by the client,” she says.

Her love for detailed design and her insistence on producing quality projects has helped her to have an endless flow of clients who come to her through recommendations.

Real estate magnate

Kyosimire is not just an architect and academician. She also a business woman, with sizeable investments in the real estate industry.

“I have always had a passion for real estate development. It sprung up the first time I read Rich Dad poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki where he talks about how we should operate in the four quadrants: the employed and self-employed on one hand, business and investment on the other,” she says.

To achieve her real estate goals, she started off with a hotel supplies business. Her business, still running today, supplies branded sugar sachets and other supplies to various hotels. She says the biggest percentage of the profits from this business, the income she makes from MUK and from her architectural consultancies ends up being invested in her real estate business.

“In the earlier days, I would build houses for rent. However, the return on investment in rent takes really long to come, so I changed the approach. So we now build apartment for sale on condominium arrangement,” she says.

Her niche in the condominium market is the high-end type, built the top residential areas, where the level of detailing and finishes is top-notch. The kind that only a female architect can pull off.

Journey through school

After primary seven, her mum Anne Gamurorwa, made the decision to send her to Bishop Comboni College in Kanungu, a third grade school compared to Maryhill High School in Mbarara where she had wanted to go.

Gamurorwa who was a teacher at Maryhill, knew that if her daughter joined the school, she would end up living a very soft life that would be counter-productive in the end.

Kyosirimire did not like it at first, but in hind sight, going to Comboni was the best thing that happened to her. It taught her to be independent, quick-witted and self-reliant. To get to the school, the fourteen-year-old had to take a bus and two pick-up truck taxis (you read that right) in treacherous, cliff-hugging roads, all by herself in a sea of strangers. Without alertness, bravery and creativity, you probably will not make it to school. And there were no phones in Kanungu, mobile or otherwise.

“I learnt the essence of hard work. I had to maintain the first position in class for the four years I was there. My parents were very happy because they never paid any fees for me for the entire time I was there. I learnt to believe that I was capable. I also learnt to rely on God because it was a Christian school. The Christian values I learn at the school sustained me in architecture school,” she says.

In addition to the hard skin she developed due to her hard circumstances, she says her untamed competitive nature has served her well.

“One day in Comboni, two sisters joined us from Australia. I felt so threatened that I started waking up earlier than anybody to read in order to keep my number one position.

When I went home for holidays it was was worse. I was so intimidated that even when I went home, I continued reading late into the morning hours. I would put my feet in a basin of cold water to keep awake. All because I feared these Australia girls were going to step on my tuft. But I formed a lifetime friendship with these girls,” she says.

Math struggles

The future architect started off on the wrong foot with mathematics.  Kyosimire says she was not always good with numbers and hated mathematics all through primary school.

“My dad taught us mathematics from a very young age. I remember I would use my fingers to add when he gave me numbers to add but if the number was more than 10, I would not be able get to the answer because I always ran out of fingers,” she says.

That frustrated her because as an architect she would need a firm grasp of mathematics. Mathematics and architecture are two disciplines that are interlinked and mathematical expressions are applied while conceiving the structural details of any building. You will need mathematical and technical calculations to determine environmental considerations such as wind speeds, solar radiation intake and energy demands of a building. However, all this changed when her uncle tutored her in math, taught her how to think in abstract terms and changed her mind about the subject forever.

“Math suddenly changed from being my worst to my best subject, which in the long run enabled me to join Architecture school,” she says.

PhD journey

She says she is not sure she would have pursued a PhD if she had not gone through the hardship of attending Comboni.

“The PhD journey was not an easy one. I started it after being given a scholarship at Makerere University when I was not ready to study a PhD. My focus at the time was to grow my real estate portfolio. So I actually put it (the PhD) on the shelf for some time,” she says.

But different voices from family to faith leaders kept urging her to do it until she committed to do it if only to honour them.

“In addition to my parents I did to honour my supervisor Professor Barnabas Nawangwe who never gave up on me. He kept saying, ‘I know the day Doreen will decide to complete this PhD she will. Let her be,” she says.

She says she owes her swift progress with her studies to a team of great supervisors, including Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, Dr Assumpta Nagenda - Musana and Dr Henry Manyire. 

“I was able to complete the PhD in time in spite of having had triplets as soon as I got the scholarship,” Kyosimire says.

Thesis on women

Her PhD thesis studied the living arrangements of marginalised single mothers from low income communities. She worked with the women of Mases in Jinja, whom many disparage as prostitutes because of their way of life. But she found respectable women that have built their own homes with their own means.

“I found that these are very hardworking women. They were not prostitutes but very hard working individuals who are self-made, educated their children and even built the houses that fit their needs. I speak for those women,” she says.