Arian Muindi Nzioka: UoN Valedictorian class of 2023

The Department of Architecture produced the valedictorian who was the top ranked student during the 69th graduation ceremony, graduating class of 2023.

Graduating with a bachelor of architecture (first class honors) degree, Arian Muindi Nzioka wowed fellow graduands and the congregation while giving his valedictorian speech as he drew parallel between school life and the outside world in which he advised. “Now that you have a chance in life to pick your own path. Will you pick a workload that you can comfortably carry or will you choose to be spontaneous and see what happens”.

About life in school, he reflected that; In the school of architecture, final year is a student driven curriculum. One gets the liberty to choose a field of study for the rest of the year. In my case I took time to decide on the path to choose, I wanted to do something interesting, I wanted to explore and discover, that is what I knew would excite me. Finally I decided I was going to analyse the geometric composition of modern architecture in Nairobi CBD.

This has been one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, it was a very exciting topic but the complexity of it had me completely clueless.

Luckily my supervisors and studio staff had the skill and insight to continuously propose and review possible ways we could achieve this mission. Eventually, one day it all clicked, solutions we had discarded earlier suddenly made sense, the work I had done prior, initially scattered came together, like pieces in a puzzle. Though herculean at first in the end I was able to triumph.

During his final year of study, Nzioka conducted a research thesis titled analysis of geometric forms of modern architecture: a case of Nairobi CBD (1963 - 1990). He was supervised by Arch. Musau Kimeu and Arch. Mumbi Maina

Link to the full speech

Link to his Thesis

Link for photo gallery