Housing reflects the environment that house is in such as forest vs savannah. They are also custom to culture or to sociopolitical status. By sociopolitical status it would be the size of the house of the King compared to the size of the ordinary man’s compound. This exits between the African sections of land and the white-only sections of land. In areas where there is so much spontaneous growth there is cleavage that separates the most fortunate from the less fortunate. The more fortunate would have walled off villas and elaborate homes while the less fortunate had more modest and open housing.
Belgian Colonialism in the Congo Basin prime motive was in pursuit of European benefit. Their goal was profit-maximization and this shaped their relationship