In his Kenyan exile, Ernst May wanted to be an architect, but not only for wealthy Europeans or significant clients. Even in his Frankfurt years, affordable housing for lower income groups had been a concern of his. There he had gained experience in creating prefabricated buildings from standard parts. Now, May designed a prefabricated house which would be cheap and easy to build in the African continent.

May modelled the exterior on the native traditional huts. Instead of grass, however, he used concrete slabs to cover the parabola-shaped walls of the pre-fabricated houses. These could then be inserted piece by piece in a skeleton structure, even by untrained workers. Windows, doors and air vents simply required the use of different pieces of concrete. The size of the house could be varied by using different skeleton structures. May was thus able to offer a total of ten different types of house.

The architect believed firmly in the benefits of his prefabricated homes. Of course he also hoped to achieve commercial success with them. As a precaution he patented his assembly system. However May was nonplussed to discover that the Kenyan population had scarcely any interest in his ideas. He suspected that his house was not 'European' enough. In contrast to the other projects May worked on during his exile, his pre-fabricated houses left no lasting impression.