A new city being built
outside of the capital Luanda, Kilamba Kiaxi, is considered the largest social housing project & EPC (engineering, procurement and construction)
contract in Africa and one of the newest, emergent Smart Cities. In the Kimbundu language the name means Land (Kiaxi) of
Kilamba.
Built by the China International
Trust and Investment Corporation, the city is designed to accommodate 500,000
people and includes 750 eight-story apartment blocks, occupying 880 hectares.
Located 20 km from the
center of Luanda, the Kilamba project is the most advanced to date of the five
new cities that are being built around Luanda alone and carries a price tag of
$3.5bn.
Angolan officials are
employing such a grand urban development scheme as a means of providing housing
for the millions of Angolans who are without formal housing, 12 years after the
end of the civil war. During the war
years, little social housing was built, with the result that ¾ of the 4.3
inhabitants of Luanda live in mussekes or informal settlements.
Constructing new city
centers on the outskirts of existing cities is a new urban planning method
employed to eliminate the difficulties involved in relocating populations who
already live on development sites.
The Kilamba Kaixi buildings
include 20,002 apartments and 246 shops, containing 24 (KG)
kindergartens, 9 primary schools, 8 secondary schools, 2 substations, 1 sewage
treatment plant and 1 water treatment plan, with primary & secondary
municipal roads. Beyond
the normal municipal systems such as water supply, power supply,
telecommunications, sewage, drainage, traffic signals, the original development
plans entailed the integration of electronic systems to enable an Internet interconnectivity
of housing and municipal systems. (Consolidated Consulting Group, African Business Magazine)
