About
DoumArchitects
From humble beginnings came big dreams. This is the story about Doumarchitects, a small architecture firm in Botswana.
History
Armed with a Professional Architecture qualification from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and a year long internship at the award winning design firm SAOTA, Ronnie L Douma returned to Botswana to start Doumarchitects.
With a passion for sustainable urban design principles in Africa and a love for continuous design education, it should have been a seamless path.
The dream was to anchor his roots in the promising city of Gaborone and focus on building a professional consultancy that would be well regarded as one of the best design consultancies in the country.
Industry challenges
Doumarchitects faced a formidable challenge. The absence of regulation around the architecture profession saw anyone who could draw house plans being able to submit drawings to council authority for approval and severely undermining the profession.
The result were:
Sub-par quality, lack of design progression of the country, very few in the market who understood the difference between off the shelf stock plans and custom designed solutions, as well as growing lack of faith in local professionals by corporate clients, which led to majority of big projects being outsourced outside the country.
Introducing regulation
The Architects Regulation Council was mandated to regulate the profession, which brought much needed change in the industry.
As stated on the Architecture Registration Council’s website, the main objective of the ARC is to protect the interests of members of the public in any dealings that such members of the public may have with registered architects.
They duly regulate all activities and conduct of all architecture professionals. One of their core mandate is to maintain the integrity; improve the standards, and the professional qualifications of architecture. If your architect is not listed on this website, they are probably not qualified Architects. Doumarchitects is registered with ARC. See our listing here
OUR VISION
AND Mission
Our vision is to
- Elevate national pride through holistic visionary and sustainable designs that attract Global attention.
- To design iconic landmarks that are a manifestation of our progress as a country.
- To promote slow living and peace of mind by designing ecologically friendly sanctuaries
Our Mission is to
- Challenge stagnant industry norms by prioritizing education, to ensure continuous growth and adaptation of urban sustainable centered design.
“
Principle Architect //Director
Ronnie Douma
Every design is personal.This is why I strongly believe that creating a good relationship with the client is the most important factor before starting to design. We have to understand your needs as the client and the real problem you need design to solve for you. Once we have a glimpse of your true vision, only then can we creative emotive design. Interested in starting a project?
learn more
Functional
Sustainable
Beautiful