By Edmund Nagaba
What do we remember of the architecture of the past? And what will the architecture of the future remember about us? In any Ugandan city, one street can hold traces of traditional African spatial ideas, colonial planning, post-independence modernism and contemporary glass-and-concrete development. So what happens when the next generation of Ugandan architects gets something no previous generation had: artificial intelligence, generative design, BIM, drones and digital fabrication?
Layers of a Ugandan style
We have always struggled with the question, “What is the Ugandan style of architecture?” The honest answer is that there has never been a single style, only the ways we have responded to climate, culture, materials and social organization across different eras.
The traditional era built with local materials, with spatial organization shaped by the norms of each indigenous group and the climate of each region. The Kasubi Tombs of the Buganda kings in Kampala, built from wood, thatch, and wattle and daub and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001, remain one of the clearest examples. The colonial era brought administrative and commercial buildings and construction techniques focused on durability, some of which still stand.
After independence, a confident modernist architecture emerged, followed by commercial high-rises and an increasingly global architectural language. Our own era is the most globally connected yet: glass-and-concrete towers, malls and fast-growing residential estates drawing on imported design languages, alongside an ongoing debate about how to make them respond to our climate and culture again.
Through every era, Ugandan architecture has evolved by absorbing new influences and adapting them to local realities. The newest is not a style or a material but a set of tools.
From the drawing board to the prompt
The architecture I encounter professionally is not just facades. It is materials, regulation, logistics, cost, safety, functionality and the ever evolving technology; be it the construction methods or the design and documentation tools. Over the past few decades, the tools have moved from hand-drawn documentation to 2D CAD, then to complex 3D visualization, and now to AI that can generate a concept in seconds from a simple prompt.
I equate the rise of AI with the arrival of CAD. There was resistance then, too, but those who embraced it became faster and more efficient, and those who hold out against AI may one day realize their reluctance was a mistake.
My own experience follows that arc. During the pandemic I invested a good chunk of time learning 3D visualization software: the popular ones like Lumion and Twinmotion, then the more sophisticated ones like 3ds Max, Unreal Engine and Blender. The more time I invested, the better the visuals became, and not long after, my colleagues with clients who preferred ultra-realistic 3D renders were all coming to me. The downside was the workflow: a decent render meant hours of processing and of curating material palettes and colors. As soon as AI came into the picture, a render that would take hours to prepare could be generated in minutes, and the quality was a grade above what these programs could produce. The efficiency of the tools available, even the free ones, is astonishing.
Architects are trained to be critical thinkers and problem solvers, and AI is increasingly being trained to reason too. That is what makes this moment different from earlier software upgrades: the tool is no longer just helping us draw, it is edging toward helping us think.
Uganda’s early adopters
Uganda is gradually adopting AI, with a number of startups at the ICT Innovation Hub, for example Spaxzyte Ltd, Taza-Fasi and Wal-E visual, already on board. These are a few I’ve personally engaged with that are actively innovating in the architectural space using some of the latest technology on the market. To my knowledge, these Startups have been developed by architects or architecture affiliated colleagues.
Spaxzyte Ltd, a Ugandan/East African spatial-data and technology startup focuses on applying AI and Industry 4.0 tools to urban and heritage-space problems, rather than a conventional architecture practice. Its stated ambition is to enable urban problems in developing East African cities to be simulated digitally before physical interventions are made.
Taza-Fasi on the hand is a Kampala-based private technology and media company whose focus is “digitalizing built environments” through 3D rendering, Virtual Reality (VR), and 360° virtual tours. It targets architects, interior designers, real-estate developers and other construction/built-environment professionals. Many clients struggle to understand conventional floor plans and technical drawings, so Taza-Fasi uses immersive visualization to let them see and experience a proposed building before it is constructed.
Wal-E Visual, a Kampala-based Ugandan startup focused on extended reality (XR)—especially virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), real-time 3D and immersive simulation. Its public materials position it across education, architecture, tourism, automotive, product visualization, manufacturing simulation, and virtual production. What makes it particularly interesting is that it sits much closer to the architecture–technology–education intersection than a normal 3D visualization studio.
The other side of the AI story
A word of caution before we get carried away. Speed is not the same as correctness, and AI is very good at producing output that looks finished, which is where the danger sits. Legal commentators already flag scenarios such as a generative design tool proposing a structurally unsound layout that a designer follows in good faith or an inaccurate schedule forecast exposing a contractor to liquidated damages.
Smaller errors are easy to picture too. Language models can invent plausible-sounding standards that do not exist, and architects report clients arriving with AI-generated plans that look coherent until someone reads them properly. Standard contracts were not drafted with AI in mind, leaving open who is responsible when a tool gets it wrong. The tool may be fast, but the drawing still needs a professional who checks it and answers for it if it fails.
So will we be replaced?
Will AI replace us soon? The question plagues my mind on those rare days when my desk is not stacked with deadlines, and the possibility is very real. But AI would have to take on something fundamentally human: accountability. Who do we sue if it hallucinates? It can be trained to do project management and coordination, but can it supervise on site? Perhaps it could using real time documentation tools. Still, I believe the liability question is where people will return to human interaction and coordination, relegating AI to the back end of operations.
Liability is not the only human piece. Clients rarely arrive with a finished brief, and hearing what a family or a developer cannot quite put into words is a skill built on trust. Construction is physical and local: someone has to stand on site, notice that the ground is not what the report said, and negotiate with the contractor. And some knowledge lives in people rather than in files. The Kasubi Tombs were laser-scanned in 2009, and when fire destroyed the main tomb building in 2010, that digital record could be used to help restore it. Yet by tradition only members of the Ngeye clan carry out the thatching, with the knowledge passed down through generations. The scan holds the shape of the building; the know-how to make it lives in people.
Relevant technologies
If these tools are here to stay, it helps to know which ones matter most for the profession.
BIM (Building Information Modeling). BIM turns a design into a shared 3D model that also carries data on materials, quantities and cost, so architects, engineers and contractors can catch clashes before they reach the site.
Digital twins. A digital twin extends that idea beyond construction: a digital replica of a building, linked to data from the real one such as energy use, occupancy and maintenance, so owners can monitor and manage it over its life.
Drones, laser scanning and Gaussian splatting. Drones and laser scanners record existing sites and buildings as measured 3D data, as the Kasubi scan did. Gaussian splatting is a newer technique that turns ordinary photos or video into photorealistic, navigable 3D scenes quickly. It is excellent for visualization and heritage documentation, though it does not replace a proper survey.
Generative design and digital fabrication. Generative tools explore many layout options against constraints such as daylight, cost and structure, while digital fabrication, from CNC cutting to 3D printing, turns digital models into physical components. How far these take root here is still an open question, but they are the ones I would watch.
Skills worth building
For the next generation of Ugandan architects, the professional skills that matter are shifting. Fluency with these tools comes first, but so does the judgment to check what they produce: an AI-generated design still has to comply with the building code, survive structural review and suit the client’s budget and site. Add data literacy, clear communication with clients and contractors, and a firm grasp of professional ethics and liability, the areas where a human name still goes on the drawing.
What the future will remember
Ugandan architecture has never been one fixed style. It has been a habit of absorbing what arrives, whether new materials, new rulers or new ideas, and making it local. AI is the newest arrival, and if history is any guide, the architects who thrive will be the ones who adopt it early without letting go of what only people carry: an understanding of climate, culture, craft and responsibility. So what will the architecture of the future remember about us? I hope it remembers a generation that added a new layer to the story and stayed accountable for it, rather than one that handed over the pen.