Walking the corridor at golden hour.

The Westlands–Riverside diplomatic corridor sounds different at five in the evening than it does at noon. The traffic on Riverside Drive thins. The jacarandas catch a sideways orange light. The hum of generators is briefly absent — most of the embassies are still on grid power at that hour, before evening load-shed begins. You can hear a particular bird call that we have not yet identified.

This matters to floor plans because it tells you which rooms want to face which direction. We oriented the CPH living spaces to the south-east, against the conventional Nairobi advice of facing west to maximise afternoon sun. The advice is wrong for this corridor. The afternoon sun on the western edge of the building is harsh and warms the residence beyond comfort by 4 PM. The morning sun, by contrast, slants through the jacarandas and lands on the kitchen table for an hour and a half. It is the better hour to design for.

We made this decision after walking the plot at six different times of day across three weeks in February. The walk is the design step that most developers skip. We do not.