About
the workshop
Umbaji is a design and manufacturing workshop: architecture and product design at one end, printers, scanners and drones at the other, and the training to run any of it in between.
The point of holding all of that under one roof is that most projects need more than one of them, and the handoffs between separate suppliers are where budgets and timelines go missing.
2019
Founded in Clarksburg, Maryland, and printing for clients ever since
350+
parts printed monthly, across prototyping, production and scale models
48h
typical prototype turnaround, from accepted file to a part in the hand
What the workshop is for
Why the divisions sit together, where this is going, and how the work is actually run.
Make good fabrication ordinary
Most of what stops a good design being built is not the design. It is that the machine, the material and the person who knows how to run them arrive from three different places on three different timelines, and nobody owns the gap between them.
Umbaji exists to close that gap: to design the thing, make it, supply the equipment if you would rather make it yourself, and train whoever ends up operating it. One accountable route from drawing to object.
A workshop in every market we serve
Equipment bought abroad lands with a long lead time, a warranty that means nothing locally, and nobody nearby who has seen one before. That is not a supply problem to be solved with faster shipping; it is a reason to be present in the market.
The plan is a real workshop in each market rather than a shipping address: local stock, local lead times, local prices, and someone who can be on site. Clarksburg is the first. Nairobi is the second.
Short loops, and say the hard thing early
Work is reviewed weekly rather than revealed at the end. A client who sees a design every week can redirect it cheaply; a client who sees it once at the end can only accept it or reject it.
When something will not work, or will cost more than it is worth, we say so while it is still cheap to change. That occasionally loses us the job. It has never lost us a client.
How it got here
One machine in a garage to two markets, mostly by clients asking for the next thing.
2019
The first printer
One machine in a garage in Clarksburg, printing architectural models for local practices.
2021
The workshop
Six printers, a CNC router and a 60 W laser, and the first clients who wanted production runs rather than models.
2023
Capture and survey
Scanning and drone work added, because clients kept asking for a model of a building that already existed.
2025
Kenya
The Nairobi market opened as a market rather than a shipping destination: local stock, local pricing, local delivery tiers.
Who you actually deal with
Roles rather than titles, because on a job this size you want to know who does the thing, not who reports to whom.
Kevin Wanjiru
Founder, and the person who quotes your job
Trained as an architect, ended up running the machines. Still draws most of the permit sets.
Amara Otieno
Runs the Nairobi workshop
Commissions every machine that leaves the shop, and trains whoever is going to operate it.
Daniel Mburu
Capture and geospatial
Scanning, drone survey and the point clouds that come back from both. Licensed to fly.
Priya Shah
Materials and sustainability
Tests the recycled and bio-based filament, and writes the green building documentation.
Bring us a drawing, or a problem
A model to print, a building to permit, a site to survey, or a machine you are thinking about buying. The first conversation costs nothing and usually settles whether we are the right people for it.