Every decision is a design decision.
We don’t decorate buildings. We design homes — from the inside out. A long-form walk through The Dagaz, chapter by chapter. Read in order, read in pieces; the building rewards both.
01 · The form
Two slender wings, joined at the crown.
The Dagaz is a single 18-storey volume articulated as two slender residential wings joined at the top by a structural bridge. The bridge spans the width of the plot and carries the crown: rooftop pool, terrace, and the DEMAR signature. Between the wings, mid-tower, the façade opens into a series of stacked planted arches — voids cut through the floor plates that reveal greenery, sky, and balcony life from across the street. The form draws on a 1973 instinct: the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, co-designed by Norwegian architect Karl Henrik Nøstvik and Kenyan chief architect David Mutiso, used a ventilation system that worked with Nairobi’s climate rather than against it. The Dagaz inherits that lineage. From a distance, it reads as carved, not assembled.
02 · Massing
Why eighteen floors, and not more.
Eighteen floors is the height at which Westlands' canopy still reads as the foreground from a balcony, the CBD reads as the horizon, and the building can be served by two cores rather than four. Above that we would be specifying lifts and shafts, not residences. Below it we would be repeating a typology that already exists in the district. The footprint is set back from Raptor Road to keep the matured jacaranda perimeter intact, and pulled toward the rear of the plot so that the garden — not the kerb — is what residents walk through to reach the lobby. The slenderness ratio of the two wings is a direct consequence of that decision.
03 · Façade & material
Long-format Danish brick, deep balconies, plants written into the elevation.
The exterior is faced in Petersen Tegl long-format brick from Denmark — a kiln-fired, coal-fed clay brick laid in narrow horizontal courses to give the elevation a grain that catches the late-afternoon light. Honest materials, generous proportions. The tone reads with the Nairobi escarpment, not against it. It is not white, not grey, not painted concrete. Balconies are framed in the same brick, with travertine sills and integrated planters that spill over the edge. The building wears its landscape; the planting is structural, not decorative. A well-designed building ages gracefully — gaining character and value — while a merely fashionable one becomes obsolete.
04 · The crown
A rooftop carved through the silhouette.
The crown is the building's signature. Two arch-form openings sit on the bridge between the wings, framing sky on three sides. Beneath them: an infinity-edge pool flanked by sun terraces. Above them: the DEMAR wordmark in spaced serif caps, set into the bridge spandrel. The crown belongs to all eighteen floors equally — the pool deck and terrace are amenity, not penthouse.
05 · Arrival
One arch, one valet pedestal, one quiet uniform.
You arrive under a single deep arch cut into the ground floor. The arch is large enough for a vehicle to pause beneath; the soffit is panelled in pale oak slats. The drop-off is paved in honed limestone, edged with low planted beds and matured trees. A bronze valet pedestal — etched DEMAR — sits on the kerb. The building name is again in spaced serif, set into a stone fascia above the arch. The concierge is dressed in a sand-coloured Mandarin-collared linen jacket — a single quiet uniform note that signals service without heraldry.
06 · The lobby
A daylit atrium of stone, water, oak and planted arches.
The lobby is a triple-height atrium organised around three things: a stone water feature at floor level, a spiral planted stair that climbs through the void, and a sequence of soft-radius arches that frame the seating bays. Travertine floors honed to a low sheen; oak slat walls; pale linen and bouclé seating; sisal rug; a handful of dark sculptural objects on plinths. Daylight enters from skylights along the spiral and from full-height glazing onto the garden. There is no chandelier and no marble veining drama — only the sound of moving water against stone.
07 · Interior architecture
Light, proportion, and five materials repeated.
Inside the residence the register is consistent floor to floor: honed travertine in living areas, pale oak elsewhere, lime-plaster walls, full-height glazing in slim dark-bronze frames, and unlacquered bronze hardware. Window placement is decided by how morning light reaches the breakfast table — not by how a façade looks symmetrical from across the street. Door handles are specified to feel precisely right in your hand for the ten thousand times you will use them. The best design is invisible when it works; you don’t notice it, you just notice that everything feels right. There is no high-gloss lacquer, no chrome, no patterned tile — the building does not need them.
08 · Material palette
Petersen Tegl brick, white oak, travertine, oxidised brass.
The exterior is faced in long-format Petersen Tegl brick from Denmark — a kiln-fired, coal-fed clay brick whose tonal variation is impossible to fake in render. Kitchens are Bulthaup b3 with Gaggenau appliances; sanitary is Vola fittings with Antoniolupi vanities and tubs, Catalano basins, and Geberit concealed cisterns. Glazing is Schüco AWS 75 SI+ triple-glaze in slim dark-bronze frames. Interiors run on white oak engineered plank (UV-cured oil) with travertine in wet rooms. Hardware is Olivari oxidised-brass. Lighting is Davide Groppi and Astep with custom DEMAR fittings on the public-amenity floors. Each line of this palette is contracted and on the published standards page; each line is checked at handover against the specification.
09 · The garden
A botanical ground plane, with the brand carved into the path.
The plot is landscaped front to back as a botanical garden of paths and pools, not a lawn with shrubs around the edge. From above, the paths are sinuous, with DEMAR carved into the paving in stone-set serif caps near the entry — subtle from street level, unmistakable from a balcony. Mature jacaranda trees are retained at the perimeter; their lavender bloom seasons the building. Residents walk through the garden to reach their lobby; there is no surface car park between the street and the building.
10 · The architect
Lars-Henrik Mortensen — from Copenhagen to Nairobi.
Lars-Henrik Mortensen is the Principal Architect of The Dagaz and the lead author of every drawing in the project. Trained at KADK (the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture) in Copenhagen, he spent nine years at Mortensen+Holm in Copenhagen working on residential and civic buildings, before founding the DEMAR design studio in Nairobi in 2019. He is a Danish architect who has lived in Nairobi for years — he knows the traffic patterns, the light at different times of day, the way the red soil looks after rain. He walks the site each week, signs the construction-document set personally, and holds the pen on every joinery detail and hardware specification. There is no translation step where ambition becomes compromise — the translator and the architect are the same person, and the architect is on site.
Walk the building with the architect.
A 75-minute private session — by video or in our Westlands sales gallery — going through the architectural decisions chapter by chapter.