Assumpta Nnaggenda-Musana is a Ugandan architect, urban planner and academic who specialises in sustainable urban settlements and low-income housing schemes in developing countries like her own. She is the first woman in Uganda to have a PhD in architecture, and the only one as of 2016.
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Education
She is the daughter of two artists: Grace Nnaggenda and the well-known East African sculptor and painter Francis Nnaggenda. She credits her parents, especially her father, with encouraging her to channel her artistic talents into architecture. She went to Nakasero Primary School and then Trinity College Nabbingo followed by Makerere High School. At this time there were no architecture courses at Ugandan universities so she spent time between 1989 and 1995 in Russia and the Ukraine after getting a scholarship to study in the former Soviet Union. Most of this time abroad was at the Kharkov State University of Civil Engineering and Architecture where Nnaggenda-Musana got a master's degree in architecture.
Career
After a few years in private practice at home in Kampala she studied for a licentiate and PhD at Kungl Tekniska Högskolan (KTH) Royal Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and the Built Environment in Stockholm, Sweden. This involved periods of research in the "informal settlements" of Uganda and Kenya. She was awarded a PhD in Urban Planning and Environment in 2008 with a dissertation on Housing Clusters for Densification within an Upgrading Strategy. The Case of Kampala, Uganda: the first and only (as of 2016) woman in Uganda to hold a doctorate in architecture.
Nnaggenda-Musana was already on the faculty at Makerere University and was promoted to full lecturer once she had her doctorate. She has spoken out on the subject of affordable housing for the poor and urged the Ugandan government and Kampala City Council, which she accused of corruption and incompetence, to do better in order to avoid sprawling slums. Her research suggests that low-rise housing would be a better solution than single-storey detached dwellings for the very poor. It makes better use of land, is more likely to allow people to live within reach of jobs, and ultimately requires less expenditure on infrastructure. Her proposals could be part of an "enabling strategy" for low-cost housing using local people's ideas and craft skills, according to Professor Emeritus Dick Urban Vestbro of KTH. She has also been chief designer in a university team developing mobile public toilets for city centres, slum communities and other places with poor sanitation.
She is married to the architect Daniel Musana and they have one son. She continues to do some work in private practice alongside her other interests. She has also sat on various boards and committees, is an advisor to the National Planning Authority and has been involved in the National Development Plan.