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Gisimba Memorial Community Center New Campus

Nyamirambo – Kigali, Rwanda

Gisimba Memorial Center holds an extraordinary history: during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the original site became a place of refuge. Today the organization continues to work with young people, and its new-campus proposal must expand that work without turning history into a backdrop.

Gisimba Memorial Community Center New Campus architectural visualization with watercolor and blueprint details

The story

A new campus for education, therapy, and youth programs

Gisimba Memorial Center holds an extraordinary history: during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the original site became a place of refuge. Today the organization continues to work with young people, and its new-campus proposal must expand that work without turning history into a backdrop. Journeyman International developed a master plan for education, trauma-informed therapy, community support, and everyday youth programs in purpose-built spaces.

The design seeks a careful balance between privacy and connection: quiet settings for counseling, flexible rooms for learning, outdoor areas for play and gathering, and circulation that feels clear and safe. The new campus is intended to complement the original site and preserve its significance rather than erase or imitate it. The design aims to give current programs the space they need while carrying forward a legacy defined by protection, courage, and care.

Phase 3 · Arts and music hub

From shelter to stage

Winning student competition proposal · Tiamo Onen Benjamin · Kyambogo University

At Gisimba, a workshop doorway could become a stage. Phase 3 explores how the center’s arts and music spaces can open into a shared courtyard, giving young people room to make, rehearse, perform, and gather.

Tiamo Onen Benjamin’s winning student proposal, “From Shelter to Stage,” treats the buildings and courtyard as one connected setting. Folding façade panels open the workshops toward the outdoors. The workshop becomes a backstage area, its threshold a performance space, and the courtyard a place for an audience. Stepped terraces add seating and garden pockets, while the courtyard leaves room for reflection and creative play. A workshop roof connects the indoor and outdoor stage.

The proposal builds on Gisimba’s continuing work in education, care, and creative expression. It presents a possible next chapter for the existing campus, with spaces that can change between everyday use and shared performances. These drawings show a competition concept; they do not document completed construction.

Gisimba Phase 3 proposed plan, with workshops and a studio opening onto a planted central courtyard.
The plan connects workshops and a studio through one courtyard.
Gisimba Phase 3 section drawing connecting the workshop backstage, threshold stage, and courtyard audience beneath existing trees.
Workshop, threshold, and courtyard form a continuous performance setting.
Competition rendering of Gisimba’s proposed arts and music hub, with musicians performing from an open workshop toward people gathered beneath courtyard trees.
An evening performance imagined in the proposed arts and music hub. Design and illustration: Tiamo Onen Benjamin.

Continuing partnership

Gisimba Memorial Center

A sequence of campus planning and renovation work supporting Gisimba's long-term service to children, families, and the surrounding community.