Kigali, Rwanda, has emerged as a pioneer in urban and digital transformation. Kigali sets a new inversed model of city development that expands from its hilltops downwards to the vital wetlands. The Kigali Unplanned Neighbourhood Upgrading Tool (KUNUT) provides a research platform that integrates digital technology with ecological and social data to foster sustainable, inclusive development.
Over the past decades, Rwanda has transformed from an agrarian country into one of Africa’s most digitalised nations, placing Kigali at the forefront of urban transformation and turning it into a laboratory for the future of African cities. It showcases the dual reality of migrating elephants in the wetlands next to high-tech AI start-ups. Unlike many cities that develop in valleys before expanding uphill, Kigali has grown from its hilltops downward, encroaching upon its natural infrastructure, the wetlands. These ecosystems are essential for water management, biodiversity, and agriculture, but they are increasingly threatened by rapid urbanisation, internal migration, and infrastructure development.
Natural Infrastructure Corridors form the Backbone of Urban Design
To address these challenges, our team envisions a future for Kigali where natural infrastructure corridors form the backbone of urban design, integrating geography, culture, climate, and biodiversity into the city’s growth. This vision calls for a new planning approach for African cities that prioritises spatial equity, restores ecological corridors, enhances climate resilience, and improves water management to create sustainable and dignified human settlements.
KUNUT – Kigali Unplanned Neighbourhood Upgrading Tool, developed at Prof. Klumpner’s Chair of Architecture & Urban Design, in collaboration with the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), is a large-scale digital decision-making tool that analyses, visualises, and prioritises urban upgrading scenarios based on real-time environmental, social, and economic data. By integrating GIS, data science, scenario modeling, and participatory engagement, KUNUT empowers local governments, planners, and communities to design sustainable, adaptable, and inclusive urban strategies.
The KUNUT tool’s workflow consists of the following steps
- Data Collection and Consolidation
- Data Analysis (Registering the Existing)
- City Scale Strategy Development
- Site Identification and Selection (Prioritisation of Sites)
- Selected Site Analysis
- Neighbourhood Scale Strategy Development
- Scenarios-Design for Settlement Upgrading
- Output formats in GIS-referenced layers, 2D, 3D and 4D models, drawings and maps including automated reports and evaluations through predefined Key Performance Indicators based on the SDGs.
Interactive Graphical User Interface of KUNUT – Kigali Unplanned Neighborhood Upgrading Tool © ETH Zurich Klumpner Chair of Architecture and Urban Design
As Kigali and other African cities continue to grow, digital tools like KUNUT will be key in real-time policymaking, shaping a future where cities reconcile with their natural environment.
Dr. Michael Walczak graduated in 2021 from the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In his work, he has bridged with the ETH Zurich’s Klumpner Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, Laboratory for Energy Conversion, and the ISTP Urbanization Research Incubator. His doctoral dissertation, «Digital Urban Imaginaries: Digital models transforming citizen-centred design processes,» led to the co-development of the commercialised software Enerpol for large-scale urban simulations. Michael Walczak is currently a postdoctoral researcher leading the Urban Transformation Project Sarajevo and is a founding partner of Urbanthinktank_next.
Alejandro Jaramillo Quintero is a Colombian architect and researcher with several years of experience in the design, management, and construction of public projects in Europe, Africa, and South America. His research focuses on the challenges and achievements of internally displaced people in accessing adequate housing and the role of design and architecture in post-conflict scenarios. Since 2018, he has been part of the Klumpner Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, where he works on the Urban Transformation Programme in Colombia and is part of the teaching team of the Design Studio and Master Thesis. Alejandro is also the founder and co-creator of the project Re-Turn To Home, an initiative to develop a housing self-construction manual for returnee communities in Colombia.
Project Team ETH Zürich: Prof. Hubert Klumpner, Dr. Michael Walczak, Alejandro Jaramillo Quintero, Georgia Drakou, Diogo Figueiredo
External Consultants: Anne Graupner, SDC, Nicolas El Hayek