Humphrey Kalanje

Humphrey Kalanje is a Tanzanian architect who is interested in how architecture and urban planning can help make our societies more inclusive and just. He was born in Dar es Salaam in 1959. He moved to Finland after he retired from the Tanzanian civil service in 2017. Humphrey received his Bachelor's degree in Architecture from the University of Roorkee (now IIT Roorkee) in India and a Master of Science in Architecture degree from the Helsinki University of Technology (now part of the Aalto University) where he is now working on his Ph.D. He has studied at Oslo University in Norway (where the focus was on energy and the environment) and Lund University in Sweden. He has also taught and lectured at Aalto University and other schools in Finland. He was one of the teachers at the Cities in Crisis program at Aalto University where students were introduced to the challenges facing cities in the global south. Humphrey worked for over 30 years at the Tanzania Buildings Agency (formerly the Department of Buildings) of the Ministry of Works until he retired in 2017. His projects at the Ministry of Works included the State House Refurbishment project (he was its Employer’s Representative), the Kisutu juvenile court building (which was the first one in Tanzania), houses for vulnerable youth at Tulu village near Sikonge in Tabora and the only (hopefully more have since been built) universally accessible public toilet at the Kitete Regional Hospital at Tabora. He is also proud of the Umoja Center for vulnerable adolescents at Mwananyamala B and one for similarly vulnerable women at Manzese that he designed for AMREF. Humphrey is a Corporate member of the Architects Association of Tanzania. He is also a Board Member of Lyra in Africa (Finland) and Chairman of the Lyra in Africa Construction Sub- committee. Lyra in Africa has constructed 14 hostels for secondary school female students in rural Iringa. The fifteenth hostel is under construction in rural Dodoma.