Research Interests
Southern Urbanism and Post colonial Urban studies
-Informality, Spatial practices and Social space
-Decolonial Urban Planning and Alternative Knowledge Systems
-Community-led Urbanism and Governance in Informal Settlements
Priscilla Namwanje is a Ugandan urbanist, researcher, and educator specializing in sustainable and inclusive urban development in the Global South. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Makerere University and a Master’s in Urbanism (cum laude) from TU Delft, where she was awarded the Sub-Saharan Africa Excellence Scholarship.
For the past eight years, Priscilla has led research and community-based projects in Kampala’s informal settlements, focusing on spatial justice, local knowledge, and participatory urbanism. She is an Assistant Lecturer at Makerere University’s Department of Architecture and leads ReFrame, an urbanism research initiative based in Kampala.
Her community engagement includes a 2017 visioning project for Kibugambata (Jinja), urban agriculture initiatives in Katanga (2018), and documentation of local construction techniques with youth in Kasanvu (2019). In 2022, she applied the Pattern Language Approach to co-develop spatial visions with residents of Kitintale and Kasanvu.
Priscilla is an active participant in international dialogues on sustainable urbanism. She has contributed to workshops such as Les Ateliers (2019, Kampala), the Norman Foster Foundation’s Sustainability Workshop (2021, Madrid), the Holcim Next Generation Awards Workshop (2022, Lausanne), and UTA-Do on African cities (2023, Nairobi).
Her work has earned global recognition, including first prize in the 2021 Holcim Awards (Next Generation, Middle East & Africa) for Connective Infrastructure and a special mention in the 2022 DAIDA Foundation Global Urban Thesis Awards. She was also awarded the Norman Foster Foundation Scholarship (2021) and the inaugural OBEL Award Teaching Fellowship (2023), through which she introduced the Pattern Language methodology in architectural education at the International University of East Africa.
Priscilla is currently preparing to begin her PhD journey, where she aims to further explore southern urbanism and postcolonial urban studies.
The Kitintale Collective. This is a community-driven design and build project born from the innovative Pattern Language Course under the OBEL Award Teaching Fellowship. It offers a transformative approach to urban planning and design education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative involves collaboratively creating an art installation and a community shed with the active participation of students, local residents, youth, and community leaders.
-Connective Infrastructure. The goal of the project is to bridge the socio-spatial divides dominant in Kampala’s urban landscape, through the creation of a system defined by a network of punctual and transversal interventions, allowing for people in the different parts of city neighborhoods to connect.
Namwanje, P. (2022). The New (In)Formal : Leveraging Formal and Informal practices towards the just, resilient and sustainable urban development of Kampala. TU Delft.
Namwanje, P., Muñoz Sanz, V., & Rocco, R. (2023). The Pattern Language Approach as a Bridge Connecting Formal and Informal Urban Planning Practices in Africa. Urban Planning, 212-223.