Building Descriptions and Floor plans

Building Descriptions and Floor Plans for the Main Four Buildings We Observed While in Senegal

By: Ansah Kamara, Pat Wendler, Chris Guilcapi, and Ellie Hayden

Fallou’s Home

During our time in Senegal, we were able to observe a large variety of typical Senegalese homes, ranging from urban to rural areas as well as different socioeconomic backgrounds. One of the first homes we spent time in was a single family home in an upper-middle class neighborhood of Dakar. This was home to Fallou, a language professor and former advisor to the Senegalese president, and his family. They lived on the first floor of this multi-story home and rented out the other levels. Fallou mentioned that this style of building stems from the mentality that men will take multiple wives and the multiple stories will allow for separate living spaces within the home similar to a compound. He presented this idea as sort of a joke, but there is some truth to it.

Fallou and most of his family have spent a lot of time living in the States as well, so much like his family, this home was kind of a hybrid between the two cultures with many traditional Senegalese aspects and American influences as well. Unlike many of the other homes we visited, Fallou’s house felt very secluded and private from its surroundings. It also had a formal indoor kitchen with many appliances which was uncommon from what we observed in the other homes. Although it was a single family home, the way it was set up had a similar feel to many of the compounds we visited. There was a wide hallway that ran down the middle of the house with several rooms branching off of it. This hallway had a couch, several chairs, and a television and served as a common space for socializing like a courtyard would in a typical compound. Even though there was a formal living room, we spent our time in the hallway.

Aside from two small open-air courtyards built into the home, it was fairly closed off from the outdoors. For this reason, the house was cool and comfortable both times we were there. The larger courtyard accessed the bathroom and shower and also served as a space for outdoor cooking, prep, and laundry. The smaller courtyard’s purpose was not as clear, but it seemed as though it would be used for serving and eating meals. It was interesting to see how these outdoor spaces had been incorporated into an urban home. It allowed for some air flow in the home and a little bit of natural light. However Fallou’s main complaint was that it was always dark. This poses an interesting paradigm for Senegal, as natural light is so abundant, but is often blocked out to avoid the heat. Overall, this seemed like an efficient use of space. The only issues we determined were the lack of natural light and that the smaller courtyard was not being used to its potential.

Aminata’s Compound

A great contrast to Fallou’s house was Aminata’s family compound in Thiaroye, Dakar. Aminata is the sole bread-winner of her family, selling jewelry on Goree Island and thus earns a relatively low income for her large family. This low income is a reason for her residence in Thiaroye, which is one of the lowest-income areas of Dakar. Because of Thiaroye’s low income and closer proximity to the city, living spaces there are small and densely populated, making it hard to tell where each compound’s respective space was. One observation we made specifically of Aminata’s compound was that it was small and densely packed like the other compounds. Because of this, the living space had minimal area but maximal use, and open space was thusly scarce. Another observation we made was that there was poor airflow in the compound due to the density of buildings and lack of open space. The compound, though small, was the main area of daily activity. It was where cooking and work was done and animals were kept. Aminata’s room was partitioned by a curtain into two areas: a back room with a large bed where five of her family members slept and a front room with a broken refrigerator, a large dresser, and a mattress on the ground where three of her family members slept. There were no windows in the room and the door was kept closed at night to keep mosquitoes and dust out. This caused airflow to be largely absent within the room, save for an electric fan. The roof of the room was made out of fiberboard, which is cheaper than metal and has a lower thermal conductivity, but is less durable and leaks during the rainy season.   

Sleeping House

The house we stayed in in Keur Momar Sarr was a newly built, single story home that was not being lived in yet. It was gated off towards the outskirts of the town. The majority of the homes were in compounds similar to Meissa’s family, but we did visit a couple other single family homes similar to this one. The home had a large shed with an adjoining bathroom and shower that was outside of the main structure. This home also possessed a kind Senegalese/western hybrid-type feel like Fallou’s house, but in a lower-income, rural environment. Like the other single family homes we saw, the individual rooms stemmed off a large main corridor that we suspect will be used as a communal courtyard type space. In the front of the home the hallway was semi-open to the outdoors with a very large window with just security bars. This allowed for airflow in the hallway, but not so much in the individual rooms. Each room had one window opposite of the door, so there was a bit of a cross breeze when both were open, but this was an issue at night due to the bugs. Since the house was made of concrete it stayed relatively cool during the day, but released a lot of heat in the late afternoon and into the night. We recorded a high of 88 degrees Fahrenheit in the evening. There were three bedrooms, one adjoining bathroom with “Toubab” appliances, and what appeared to be a formal living room probably intended for guests. It was unclear as to where the cooking would be done. There was a staircase that led to the roof which had a half wall enclosing is so that it could serve as a deck for hanging laundry, but also allows the home to be easily built up in the future. The main problem we determined for this building was the heat and lack of airflow late in the day and into the night.

Meissa’s Compound

The other space we spent a lot of time in Keur Momar Sarr was Meissa’s family’s compound. This compound had a large, sandy courtyard which served as a multipurpose communal space where people congregated to socialize, do laundry, play (the children), prep food, etc. This courtyard was much more spacious than the one we observed in Aminata’s suburban compound. This makes sense seeing that it is a much less densely populated area in a rural environment where space is plentiful. Surrounding the courtyard were several individual concrete rooms built off one another, an outdoor pit latrine and bucket shower, and a fenced off area for the livestock. There was also a small semi-open kitchen/cooking space tucked back behind Meissa and another’s room.

We spent the majority of our time in Meissa’s concrete room which was a small rectangular room with one window, one door, and a small covered patio area just outside. The window and the door were on the same wall, so there was very little cross breeze. During the hottest part of the day, from about noon until three or four p.m., it was more comfortable to be inside than outside. However due to the nature of concrete, heat was released into the space later in the day, making it more comfortable to be outside in the evening and night. The metal door was kept open during the day with a curtain separating the inside space from the patio, but the door was shut at night to prevent bugs from entering. We had one or two fans going most of the time we were in this space. We observed a high of around 87-93 degrees fahrenheit late in the afternoon. Meissa’s roof was composed of corrugated steel with a lower specific heat than concrete, thus explaining why higher temperatures were recorded in this building compared to the house we slept in in Keur Momar Sarr. The slant of the roof had been constructed keeping in mind the possibility of future buildings rather than considering the direction of the sun. He had hung a tapestry between the roof and the living space, partially to act as a buffer and partially for aesthetic purposes. The covered patio outside acted as sort of a buffer to the heat since it provided a little shade for the air before entering the internal space. We determined that the biggest issue for this space was the lack of ventilation and natural airflow in the individual room.