40 years of designing Tanzania: what we learned before we started building

Triple A was founded as an architectural firm. For most of the past 40 years, that is exactly what we were. We designed and contractors built. That was the industry model, and we operated within it.

In recent years we formalized what had been building for some time; we became Triple A Architects and Construction. The same firm, with an in-house construction team now accountable for delivering what we design. The move was not arbitrary. It was the conclusion of four decades of watching what happens when design and construction sit in separate hands. Here is what those 40 years taught us.

1. The drawing is not the building.

An architect produces drawings. A contractor interprets them. In that gap between production and interpretation, things change. Sometimes the change is minor. Sometimes it is structural.

Over 40 years of architectural practice in Tanzania, we have seen buildings completed that did not match what was drawn. Foundations shallower than specified. Reinforcement reduced to cut costs. Waterproofing details skipped. In each case, the drawings were correct. The execution was not.

When the architect and contractor are separate firms, the architect can observe and report. They cannot compel. The only way to close that gap permanently is to be responsible for both the drawing and the build.

2. Most construction problems are design problems in disguise.

When a building develops problems after handover; cracking walls, flooding basements, failing roofs – the instinct is to blame the contractor. In many cases, the root cause is a design decision made months earlier.

Inadequate drainage design produces flooding regardless of how well the drainage is built. Poor foundation specification produces settlement regardless of how carefully the foundation is constructed. A roof detail that does not account for wind uplift will fail regardless of how neatly the sheets are fixed.

Forty years of architectural practice taught us to trace building failures back to their origin. More often than not, the origin is the design stage. That understanding is now built into how we approach construction supervision.

3. The client always pays for the gap between firms.

When a design issue is disputed between an architect and a contractor, both firms have legal and commercial reasons to defend their own position. The resolution process takes time. The client funds it through project delays, rectification costs, and in some cases, legal fees.

We have sat on the architect's side of that dispute more than once. We have produced the evidence, written the reports, and watched clients absorb costs that should never have arisen. The fundamental problem is structural. Two firms, one project, divided accountability.

A single firm with responsibility for both design and construction has no one to dispute with. If something is wrong, the same team that caused it fixes it. That is not just operationally efficient. It is the correct ethical position for a firm that takes its clients' projects seriously.

4. Tanzania's construction industry rewards firms that stay.

Forty years in one market teaches you things no textbook covers. Which soil types cause problems in which parts of Arusha. How the Vuli rains behave on a north-facing slope in Kilimanjaro. Which local materials perform well under the highland temperature range and which ones fail within a few seasons.

This knowledge accumulates slowly and cannot be imported. A firm that enters the Tanzanian market from outside carries none of it. A firm that has worked here for four decades carries a great deal of it. That accumulated knowledge now informs not just how we design but how we specify, procure, and supervise construction.

5. The next 40 years will be built differently.

Tanzania's construction sector is growing. The demand for residential, commercial, institutional, and hospitality development across the country is significant and increasing. That growth will produce a large number of buildings over the next four decades.

Some of those buildings will be well designed and well built. Many will not. The ones that are not will cost their owners more to maintain, more to repair, and in some cases more to demolish than they cost to build correctly in the first place.

Forty years of architectural practice gave us the technical foundation to design buildings that perform. Adding construction capability gives us the means to ensure they are built that way. That is why we made the move. That is what this next chapter is about.

If you have a project coming up and want a team that has spent 40 years learning how to get it right, talk to us.

Start a conversation with our team.

info@aaa.co.tz  |  +255 752 522 203  |  www.aaa.co.tz