Project Overview
Located in Bafang — a market town in Cameroon’s West Region set amid the highlands of the Bamileke plateau — this two-storey family residence negotiates between the region’s rich tradition of compressed-earth and fired-brick construction and the aspirations of a modernizing middle class. The house is compact, efficient, and architecturally assured: a building that looks as at home in its highland setting as it would in a curated architectural publication.
Design Philosophy
The Bamileke region has one of the most distinctive architectural traditions in sub-Saharan Africa — the tall, thatched chefferie of the Bamileke chiefs, with their elaborate carved facades and towering conical roofs, remain among the most sophisticated vernacular buildings on the continent. This project does not attempt to replicate that tradition but to honour its underlying principles: the elevation of the primary living space above the ground, the use of locally sourced materials, and the calibration of interior space to communal family life.
The two-storey format responds to the topography of Bafang’s hillside plots, which are narrow and steep. By stacking the programme vertically, the house preserves garden area and allows each floor to have its own relationship to the landscape — the ground floor engages the street and the garden, while the upper floor commands views across the surrounding hills.
Technical Specifications
Structure: Reinforced concrete frame with infill brick masonry. The frame — columns, beams, and slabs — provides structural stability on the sloping site, while the brick infill provides thermal mass and the characteristic textured facade. Concrete is locally batched; brick is sourced from kilns in the Bafoussam region.
Facade: Exposed brick on all four elevations, with varying bond patterns used to differentiate the ground and upper floors. The primary elevation features a projecting upper-floor volume cantilevered over the entrance, creating a covered porch and a strong horizontal shadow line that anchors the composition. Window openings are generous — larger than the Cameroonian vernacular norm — to maximize natural light in the cooler highland climate.
Roofing: Low-pitched metal sheet roof (0.5 mm pre-painted galvanised steel) with wide overhangs to protect the brick facade from the heavy seasonal rainfall of the West Region. Gutters and downpipes are integrated into the facade composition rather than treated as afterthoughts.
Floor Area: Ground floor approximately 90 m², upper floor approximately 85 m², total gross area approximately 175 m².
Blueprint & Floor Plan Notes
Ground floor: covered entrance porch → central hallway → living room (front) and dining/kitchen (rear), with a single guest bedroom and bathroom at the rear of the plan. A straight-run staircase on the internal side wall connects to the upper floor. The kitchen opens directly onto a rear terrace and garden.
Upper floor: landing gallery → master bedroom with en-suite bathroom (front, with balcony over the entrance porch) → two additional bedrooms and a shared family bathroom (rear). A small study or prayer room occupies a corner of the upper floor, lit by a high window on the side elevation.
The section reveals a generous ceiling height of 2.8 m on both floors — above the Cameroonian minimum standard — which contributes significantly to the sense of space and the building’s elevated quality. Structural drawings show the cantilever of the upper-floor front projection is achieved with a pair of pre-cast concrete beams extending 1.2 m beyond the ground-floor wall line.
SPANTONE 