This qualitative ethnographic study presents how intergenerational relationships have shaped the architecture of housing in the former apartheid township Kuisebmond in Walvis Bay, Namibia. The township housing, which was designed for nuclear families, now accommodates multiple generations. The original, small, single-family dwellings have become family houses by horizontal additions and extensions. The plots are often skilfully developed according to the families’ needs. In some cases, they have become impressive buildings, housing many individuals. Since formal housing provision has not been able to keep pace with urbanisation, informal housing has been constructed in the form of backyard shacks on the plots of the former township dwellings. These often mimic the former township housing units, albeit on a very small scale. Formal housing, reconstructed or not, together with backyard shacks, constitutes a social geography of intergenerational relations of the extended family. This pattern of urban restructuring affords a scaffolding for extended family needs and an architecture of resistance to apartheid social engineering. The paper reveals an important lesson for housing providers, which is intended as a critical commentary on the persistent tendency of present-day government to continue with the formula of mass-housing with spatially limited single-family dwellings as the former township houses. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.