Location: Kinigi, Musanze District Rwanda

Client: The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund

Status: Completed in 2022

Area: 4,500 sq. m

Team: TEN x TEN, MASS Design Group, Local Projects, Buro Happold, Transsolar, AEGIS Development Solutions, TECHNO Engineering Company, Oak Consulting Group, Formula D Interactive, HabitatXR, Sherwood Design Engineers, Jacques Nsengiyumva, Sheffield

Awards: 2023 Boston ASLA Excellence Award for General Design

Slideshow Photos: Iwan Baan

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund is the world’s largest and longest-running organizations focused entirely on gorilla conservation. Even though the group has been working in Rwanda for more than 50 years and has experienced dramatic growth in their programs, they still operated out of rented facilities in the town of Musanze, 30 kilometers from the national park where the gorillas live. None of these facilities were built for their unique needs and did not offer adequate or permanent space.

The Fossey Fund had minimal space for a growing staff, much less for the 400 college students who come through Karisoke each year for training. In order to secure the multi-faceted gorilla conservation work for the long term, provide increasing opportunities for local people and others to become the next generation of conservationists, and to allow people from around the world to join the effort on behalf of wild gorillas and their habitat, it was critical to have a permanent, purpose-built facility to act as a hub. This campus aims to make gorillas the entry point for a lifetime of conservation activism.