White heat: with a new co-location embassy, Manser revives Modernism in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam.

In the city that witnessed the devastation of international terrorism in 1997 with the destruction of the US embassy, the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam now has a new multiple occupancy embassy, which brings diplomats from Europe together under one roof.

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With memories of the Festival of Britain fresh in his mind when recalling the inspiration for the distinctive Umoja House roof, Michael Manser draws closer associations with a group of humble bin stores in London's Hammersmith than he does with Fry Drew & Partners' 1951 Thameside Restaurant. And perhaps he is justified to do so. Not only did the surviving stores that he worked on while working for Edward Armstrong in 1948 significantly outlive the more celebrated festival pavilion, but also as basic shelters they more fittingly express the lightness of touch that he sought in this contemporary application. Add to this the building's fully expressed column and slab superstructure--a direct translation of Corb's Dom-Ino unit (1915)--and the plasticity of form further exaggerated by the cutaway profile of the roof's generous overhangs, and you have the bones of a building that would be the pride of any die-hard Modernist. A piece of classic European Modernism, that not only demonstrates how appropriately to import post-colonial architecture, but which also reunited Manser with his former employers--the onetime British Modernist superpower Norman & Dawbarn--who as associate architects during construction of the new building, returned to Dar es Salaam forty years after beginning their early work on the City's University College (AR January 1963).

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Sitting amid the washing lines of local houses, with views of the Indian Ocean across the re-opened Gymcana Club (a former private club, now open to local residents), the building serves both local and foreign transactions. As a shared embassy building for Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, it also houses the British DFID (Department For International Development), and the European Union offices. Appropriately therefore it stands out from less distinct individual embassies in an area that is seen by some as a diplomatic ghetto. By offering a bright and efficient place for those seeking visas and passports, and by providing a base from where the five diplomatic missions seek to improve international relations and to facilitate development aid, it is a new and extremely popular landmark--the first prototype for a 'co-location' building.

Having won their commission through an invited design competition, the complexity of the brief soon became clear to Manser. The multi-headed client inevitably added complexity to the practical and otherwise essentially finite requirements, such as space allocation and environmental conditioning. Furthermore, while seeking to create a building that would appear open and transparent, already onerous security measures were significantly reinforced following the bombing of the US Embassy that occurred during the design process. Despite this however, Manser has generated a form that belies the complexity within, and provided a building that in many ways will help to streamline future operations.

Above a ground floor free-plan, with cornerless pod-like communal spaces placed between the pilotis, five floors of office accommodation are arranged in two parallel blocks. These provide flexibility for each organization, allowing open-plan and cellular configurations within enclosures that only occupy the area of each terrace as necessary. So each floor has its own identity, with varying proportions of circulation, office and sheltered terrace space.

To a degree, the atrium, which is open only to the relatively unsevere easterly sun, assists the building's cross-ventilation strategy. Unfortunately, however, due to the inherent conflict between openness and security, which in this case limits the windows to an inadequate 100mm operable tilt (even those opening onto the atrium), the building does rely on air conditioning. However, considering the need to dehumidify the outside air, which is often in excess of 90 per cent relative humidity, this would be hard to avoid altogether, and with concrete providing thermal mass, mechanical plant is only required to be active for a few hours a day to pre-condition the spaces.

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This is a bold new building, the presence of which cannot be missed in the city, and by employing over 400 local contractors it has already benefited the local community. After the bomb. Manser could have designed a bunker, solving both environmental and security issues at once. But instead he returned to the optimism of his Modernist roots, resolving a composition in response to the tenant that still proclaims architecture as the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Or rather as Manser describes it himself, in bringing regionalism to the International Style, in a response to the 'magical sharpness of the region's light and shadow'.

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