Ubuntu – Humanity

Ubuntu is a Nguni Bantu philosophy often summarized as I am because we are, or a person is a person through other people. 

It is not merely a moral idea; it is an ontology of space. In Ubuntu, a human being is not an individual who then enters society. The person is the network of relationships. 

Space, therefore, is not a container for autonomous bodies but the medium through which personhood is continuously generated.

How it translates to design:

• The circle as the default geometry: Ubuntu spaces tend toward the circular or radial, faces oriented toward a center, not toward a view. The room is complete only when the group can see each other. This is the opposite of the Japanese tokonoma (a private alcove for solitary contemplation) or the Danish hyggekrog (a personal nook).

• Even private spaces are understood in relation to the whole. A bedroom is not a sanctuary from the family but a chamber within the communal organism. The threshold is permeable.

• Space is not designed to its smallest efficient occupancy but to its maximum generous capacity. The Senegalese concept of Teranga (hospitality as national character) is the West African architectural expression of the courtyards that expand, seating that multiplies, tables that extend.

Ubuntu challenges the entire thread’s emphasis on personal querencia, ma, and hygge by asking: What if the space is not for feeling at home alone, but for becoming a person together?

Ubuntu says the space is not for you; it is for the we that makes you.