The fifth JENGA project meeting was recently hosted by the Unit for Construction Materials (UCM), in the Civil Engineering Department of Stellenbosch University. JENGA (Joint development of courses for ENerGy-efficient and sustainable housing in Africa) is a university cooperation project funded by the European Commission and implemented by the ACP Secretariat within the ACP-EU cooperation programme EDULINK II. SU's partners in this project are the UN Habitat Energy Unit, Augsburg University of Applied Science (AUAS), University of Rwanda (RU), Uganda Martyrs University (UMU), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Techhnology (JKUAT) and The American University in Cairo (AUC).

UCM staff have been involved in this project since its start in October 2013, contributing in the knowledge areas of sustainable building materials and construction methods, assessing the JKUAT, RU and UMU materials laboratories to improve the contribution these facilities can make in design-build teaching, as well as performing environmental impact life cycle analyses on the proto-type buildings constructed by the East-African partners.

The project's final event is the Sustainable Futures Conference – Architecture and Construction in the Global South, to be held at the UN Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, from 30 August to 2 September, 2016. The work of the JENGA partnership will also be published in the form of a teaching manual for design-build, applied to energy efficient and sustainable housing.

Featured meeting participants are (from left to right): Ahmed Abouzeid (AUC), Astrid Weisel (AUAS), Prof Susanne Gampher (AUAS), Peter Mbewe (SU), Dr Mark Olweny (UMU) and Dr Stephen Diang'a (JKUAT). Also present at the meeting were Wibke de Villiers (SU), Michelle Stadelmann (RU), Stefan Unge (AUAS), Michael Sedlemeier (AUAS), Achilles Ahimbisibwe (UMU) and Martin Mbidhi (JKUAT).