About / Raphael Mwito
Read the whole project.
The Development Playbook connects the physical, financial, operational, and urban decisions that determine what gets built—and whether it endures.
Playbook
Author note / Practice and inquiry
Land · Capital · Design · Delivery · Operations
Raphael Mwito / Nairobi
Architecture, capital, and development in one field of view.
Author / Practitioner
Raphael Mwito
An architect, CFA charterholder, real estate investment executive, and writer working at the intersection of the built environment and capital decisions.
Architecture
B.Arch training
Finance
CFA charterholder
Practice
Two decades across the built environment
Real estate
Investment, development, and REIT leadership
Why this exists
I trained as an architect and later became a CFA charterholder because I wanted to understand both the physical and financial logic of development.
Across real estate, the same problem appears repeatedly: design is separated from underwriting, development from operations, and individual projects from the city systems they depend upon.
This publication reconnects those conversations and makes professional knowledge more practical, legible, and useful to the people shaping African real estate.
Read the author essay →Editorial position
Serious analysis, clearly bounded.
What it covers
Development feasibility, capital allocation, architecture, delivery, REITs, African urban growth, and applied AI workflows.
What it does not do
It does not provide project-specific investment, legal, tax, valuation, planning, or design advice. The tools structure questions; they do not replace professional judgement.
Areas of practice and inquiry.
Development Logic
How projects move from land, through uncertainty, to income.
Capital and Underwriting
How assumptions, finance, and return requirements shape what gets built.
Urban Growth
How Nairobi and African cities are changing—and what development changes in return.
Design and Delivery
How architecture, approvals, procurement, and construction affect enduring value.
AI for Real Estate
How AI can improve research, feasibility, inspection, reporting, and judgment.
External profiles and work
Independent proof, beyond this site.
Speaking · Advisory · Collaboration