A high-profile residence

Located next to Riverside Gardens in Nairobi’s leafy Westlands suburbs, the Rumaisa Residency is set to become one of the city’s major landmarks. The residential complex consists of nine towers which look out onto an internal courtyard garden and are connected by a roof garden equipped with three infinity pools and Swim-up Bars, where residents and their guests can enjoy a drink and admire the breathtaking views of the Nairobi skyline.
Rumaisa Residency won the African Property Awards, Architecture category in 2017 as the best high residential building in Kenya. Still under construction, it has currently been built as far as the sixth level and is due to be completed by July 2019 when it will house 66 three- or four-bedroom duplex apartments (35 with 3 bedrooms and 31 with 4 bedrooms).
Described as «the archetype of contemporary living» by the firm that designed the building, Aleem Manji Architects, Rumaisa Residency offers a wide range of services, including swimming pools, children’s play areas, a fully-equipped gym complete with Turkish bath and whirlpools, and an indoor entertainment area.
Key features of the project include the iconic ring-shaped roof garden, which connects the towers at their summits, and the internal courtyard garden. «The shaded internal courtyard garden helped us create a cooler outdoor space that would allow air to flow through the apartments as ventilation and create a green space complete with fountains and water features available for use by residents,» explained the architects.
To fully exploit the courtyard’s microclimate while making the most of the views, most of the apartments face onto the internal garden, whereas others look out over the river.
The photos show a completed standard duplex type apartment. The heart of the unit is the double-volume living room flooded with natural light shining in through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The living area is a large open-plan space in which individual areas flow fluidly from one to another, from the kitchen to the dining and the living area, while the upper-floor Family TV Room looks directly onto this space from above.
The bright, sophisticated interior design project makes effective use of the soft and almost sandy textures of the fabrics and the warm tones of wood, illuminated here and there by the golden glint of the picture frames, chandeliers and furnishings. The luxurious interiors combine elegance and sophistication with a choice of high-end materials and furniture. All the finishings were supplied by well-known European companies. The kitchen, wardrobe and floor tiles were made in Italy, the bathroom fixtures and internal doors in Spain.
The choice of floor tiles fell on the Timber collection from Elios, which faithfully reproduces the colours and natural grain of wood in a 14×84 cm plank format, the perfect solution for combining the warmth and good looks of parquet with the practicality and durability of porcelain.
Everything is designed in meticulous detail, from the plaster suspended ceilings housing spotlights and grooves for mounting LED strip lights to the carefully designed light fixtures, elegant chandeliers and pendant lamps that illuminate the focal points of the open space such as the transition area between the kitchen and dining area, the dining table and the double volume of the living room.
European taste combines effectively with African details such as the ethnic rug, the colonial style console washbasin and the tribal paintings in the bedroom, bringing the warmth of equatorial Africa to what might otherwise have been a cold and anonymous elegance.