Ten houses just outside Kampala are proving that low-cost housing doesn’t have to mean low ambition. Marc Thorpe designed these bungalows almost entirely from Ecoblock, a bio-brick made from 90% local soil, with cement, sand, lime, and water filling the rest. It’s a bioclimatic material, insulating against heat and sound, more resistant than cement block, and it cuts carbon emissions by roughly 30% compared to conventional construction. Fully local, fully recyclable. Each single-storey home gets flat roofs designed to carry solar panels, generating its own electricity instead of depending fully on the grid. Rainwater harvesting runs off the same roofs into a private water tower, one per house, not shared. That detail matters: Thorpe built it that way specifically so no single household gets left without water if a drought hits or a shared system fails. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, living and dining space, wrapped in shaded terraces that block the harsh sun and hold the wood-burning stoves already common in Ugandan homes. Nothing about the plan asks families to abandon how they actually live, it builds around it. This project, working with Échale and Stage Six, targets middle- and lower-income families in a country facing a real housing shortage. Ten houses is the pilot. If it scales, it’s a genuine answer to the question everyone in this conversation keeps circling: does affordable housing across Africa have to mean cheap materials and imported thinking, or can it mean smart, local, and dignified. Kampala, Uganda · Design: Marc Thorpe, with Échale and Stage Six · Renderings: Truetopia