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The firm’s website still tags the National Cathedral, the Du Bois Museum Complex and others as ‘current’ projects, in contrast to on-the-ground reality. In the midst of a lack of transparency, and accountability, what remains clear is the mistake we make when we expect global celebrities who have cut their teeth in the transactional corridors of the corporate world to switch to an opposite ethic in the name of local solidarity or values. — ArtReview
Adjaye had faced criticism from numerous political figures in Ghana over alleged favoritism and high-profile public commissions even before being swept up by the sexual misconduct allegations that shocked the architecture world last summer. Now, writer Anakwa Dwamena reports that his visions for... View full entry
The Harvard Graduate School of Design just announced this year's winning proposal for the coveted Wheelwright Prize, featuring an examination of colonial systems and racial capitalism from the UK-based Zimbabwe-born researcher Thandi Loewenson. The $100,000 award is... View full entry
Foster + Partners is working on a new smart city design with actor Idris Elba for a coastal island off the shores of Sierra Leone. The news was reported by the BBC on Sunday, when the plan was revealed for the first time after five years of planning. Sasaki Associates will collaborate with... View full entry
Although the Biennale is hardly the first major exhibition to focus on Black and diasporic practitioners, the cascading crises of climate change, rapid urbanization, migration, global health emergencies and a deep imperative to decolonize institutions and spaces — starting with the historically Eurocentric Biennale itself — arguably make Lokko’s focus on hybrid forms of practice timely, be it planners as policy experts or artist-environmentalists. — The New York Times
Lokko repeated to the Times her interest in using the Biennale platform to disabuse stigmas about African identity before discussing her own experiences with identity, path to architecture, and the potential she and others are striving to present to the world. “The ability to be several things... View full entry
Details of the new Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development in Monrovia, Liberia have been revealed this week by atelier masōmī, the lead designers of an all-female project that will include exhibition designs from Counterspace’s Sumayya Vally and input from local... View full entry
It’s a fact that Africa stands for something that comes from outside. But Africans share something that is 100% there. There is a sense, particularly among the young, that the time has come to define that something on their own terms. There is a sense that it is our time. — The Guardian
The woman tasked with leading the 18th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice this summer told The Guardian critic about the ideas involved in producing the Biennale, which promises a packed slate highlighting the untapped potential Africa contains. She also spoke to Africa’s... View full entry
Multitalented Nigerian architect, sculptor, and designer Demas Nwoko is named the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the Venice Biennale in recognition of what curator Lesley Lokko described as the “polyglot nature of his talents and oeuvres and to the rather narrow... View full entry
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has released images of its just-completed first phase of the Tosin Oshinowo-designed Ngarannam village reconstruction project in Northeast Nigeria. The project to resettle villagers displaced by Boko Haram was begun last year as part of the UNDP’s... View full entry
Pritzker Prize winner Francis Kéré’s firm has shared photos of their just-completed Kamwokya Community Centre project in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. Designed for the city’s informal settlement of Kamwokya, the center hosts a variety of activities and educational resources for residents... View full entry
A proposed new residential project in Zanzibar, Tanzania, could challenge Milwaukee's Ascent tower for the title of world’s tallest mass timber structure after being unveiled to the public on October 1. Rising 28 stories to a height of approximately 315 feet, the Burj Zanzibar is designed by the... View full entry
Kargbo grew up to become a banker, but she has spent the last several years working in the administration of Freetown mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, a noted climate activist. Before becoming the city’s chief heat officer, she headed up the city’s sanitation department [...] Kargbo says her work is to keep climate change on the agenda, however many other things are tugging the world’s attention away. — Experience Magazine
A former aide to the noted climate activist Mayor of Freetown Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Eugenia Kargbo is one of five official Chief Heat Officers (CHOs) in the world. After being appointed in 2021, she joins fellow CHOs from Athens, Miami, Santiago, Chile, and Monterrey, Mexico in a program... View full entry
Speaking at the Triennale di Milano, which kicks off tomorrow in the Italian finance capital, Francis Kéré lamented the Western notion that his “unknown” home continent is a vast but homogeneous place when in reality, it is comprised of 54 countries and over 1,000 different language... View full entry
The African Futures Institute (AFI) has announced that it has received a grant totalling $150,000 from the Mellon Foundation. As stated on the Foundation’s website, the funding will be used “to support program planning and activities for the establishment of an independent graduate... View full entry
The theme and title of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale have been announced as The Laboratory of the Future, vetting a decolonized vision of Africa as a petri dish for the hopes of the broader world to come. As the Biennale’s curator, architect and academic Lesley Lokko, explains... View full entry
A historic new museum is set to take shape in West Africa, the vision of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and designer Mariam Kamara of Niger’s atelier masōmī. Bët-bi is said to be the first institution dedicated to the (temporary) collection and display of repatriated objects taken from... View full entry
