Archinect - News

Foster + Partners, Sasaki, and actor Idris Elba float plans for a 'smart city' island development in Sierra Leone

2024-03-19T13:34:00-04:00

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 the firm, Elba, and his business partners at the Sherbro Alliance Partners (or SAP). Their plan is to preserve nature areas on the 230-square-mile Sherbro Island (which has roughly ten times the land area as Manhattan) while enacting a new "eco-city" capable of supporting up to one million residents.

The outlet reports the project is to be financed through a public-private partnership and that the island will "be designated a special economic zone with a separate legal and economic system from the rest of Sierra Leone." Some online commentators have compared it to Disney World, the crypto-funded Akon City in Senegal, or the new planned community in Northern California that’s backed by a group of...

The New York Times gives Lesley Lokko the profile treatment ahead of next week’s Venice Biennale

2023-05-10T10:56:00-04:00

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.

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 at once — traditional and modern, African and global, colonized and independent — is a strong thread running through the continent and the Diaspora,” she told the paper. “We’re used to having to think about resources, about switching on a light with no guarantee of electricity. We’re able to grapple with change. That capacity to overcome, to negotiate, to navigate ones’ surroundings is going to take center stage.”

Events kick off May 20th with the announcement of the Golden Lion and other select award winners.

Plans revealed for atelier masōmī's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center in Liberia

2023-04-19T17:31:00-04:00

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 architect Karen Richards Barnes.

The project supports the EJS Center’s mission with workshops, office spaces, exhibition galleries, a café, and a library. The center was formally established on International Women’s Day in 2020 and will now play host to the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize-winning former President’s personal and professional archives.

Image courtesy atelier masōmī

The atelier’s founder, Mariam Kamara, says: “The design is a direct response to the history, climate, cultural, and architectural heritage of Liberia. The project is an introspection on the challenges faced and on the strength and hope brought about by inspirational leaders such as Madam Sirleaf. The first woman Head of State o...

Lesley Lokko tells Rowan Moore architecture's story is still 'incomplete'

2023-03-29T11:00:00-04:00

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 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 status as a continent lacking in homegrown architects and defined by “instability and invention, minimally constrained by professional structures, where the 'speed of change is likely to outstrip the ability to understand it.'”

Polymathic Nigerian designer Demas Nwoko was recently named as the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement recipient of this year's edition. The 2023 Venice Biennale opens May 20th with a special awards ceremony held at the exhibition’s Ca' Giustinian headquarters in San Marco.

Demas Nwoko receives the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award

2023-03-27T13:59:00-04:00

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 interpretation of the word ‘architect’ that has arguably kept his name out of the annals.”

Nwoko's work was also commended by Lokko for his polymath abilities and commitment to sustainability, adding: “Although relatively few, Nwoko’s buildings in Nigeria fulfill two critical roles. They are forerunners of the sustainable, resource-mindful, and culturally authentic forms of expression now sweeping across the African continent — and the globe — and they point towards the future, no mean achievement for someone whose work is still largely unknown, even at home.”

Nwoko was born in the rural town of Idumuje-Ugboko and was educated at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science, and Technology. One of the orig...

Tosin Oshinowo-designed village reconstruction completes first phase in conflict-torn northern Nigeria

2022-11-03T15:43:00-04:00

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 Regional Stabilisation Facility Initiative, which will rebuild a total of six communities in three of the country’s northeastern states profoundly affected by conflicts with the insurgent group in order to "quickly mend trust between the people and government."

Image courtesy UNDP/Tolulope Sanusi

The new Ngarannam village includes a total of 564 units of housing, a primary school, police station, community health center, shaded market, security forces barracks, government offices, and 16 small shops. Additional defensive trenches were enacted around the perimeter of the site to provide extra security in the case of emergency, and another 240 housing units wil...

Francis Kéré’s Kamwokya Community Centre debuts in Uganda

2022-11-02T10:00:00-04:00

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 in partnership with its clients, the Ameropa Foundation and Kamwokya Christian Caring Community (KCCC).

Image by Jaime Herraiz. Copyright Kéré Architecture

“We wanted to give a place of quality and beauty to the people of Kamwokya,” Ameropa’s founder Nicole Miesche said. “A place where they could sit down, take a rest from their daily struggle and dream, a place also where the children could play in a safe and clean environment.”

Photo by Iwan Baan

Image by Jaime Herraiz. Copyright Kéré Architecture

Set on a raised platform to protect against flooding, the program includes two well-ventilated, spatially-flexible buildings, a sports field, and separate sanitary facilities. The build...

A new mass timber proposal in Zanzibar would challenge Milwaukee's Ascent tower for the world record

2022-11-01T17:52:00-04:00

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 Berlin-based practice OMT Architects and will occupy a plot in the seaside city of Unguja’s Fumba Town, a roughly one-mile-wide planned “eco-town” designed by the German engineer consortium CPS to attract tech workers and businesses to the country.

In a statement to a local newspaper, OMT’s founder, Leander Moons, said it will stand as a “new ecosystem for the future of living.” The tower will reportedly feature a total of 266 residences (7 more than Ascent’s offerings) priced between $79,000 for a studio and $950,000 for the 26th-floor penthouse. Additional amenities include private garden terraces, a podium pool, and a retail component. CPS director Sebastian Dietzold added his view that ...

Chief Heat Officer Eugenia Kargbo discusses extreme heat mitigation in Freetown, Sierra Leone

2022-08-09T14:30:00-04:00

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.

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 sponsored by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock).

Arsht-Rock, along with the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance (EHRA), developed and piloted the role of CHOs to have officials "charged with unifying the response to the challenge of heat to reduce risks and impacts of extreme heat for their residents and constituents."

For these officers appointed by local officials in their cities, much of the work entails attempting to consolidate their communities' disparate (and sometimes madcap) efforts to address climate issues that are too often spread between conflicting bureaucratic hierarchies.

Meet the current Chief Heat Officers. Image courtesy of Adr...

Pritzker winner Francis Kéré is on a mission to tackle misconceptions about Africa at the Triennale di Milano

2022-07-14T12:13:00-04:00

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 traditions.

“Instead of seeing it as a young, dynamic continent, Africa is still seen as a place that needs help,” the 2022 Pritzker Prize winner told Quartz in a recent interview. “If you close your eyes to what matters to your neighbor, then you’ll never really know them.”

The Burkina Faso-born architect, who designed a 40-foot entrance tower and cafe seating area for the Triennale around traditional African gathering customs, said his goal at the exhibition is to introduce some nuance to that misconception via the inclusion of endemic materials and building techniques whose applications represent a massive amount of untapped potential.

Related on Archinect: Mariam Kamara on the higher aspirations of ...

Lesley Lokko's African Futures Institute receives a $150,000 Mellon Foundation grant

2022-06-21T17:36:00-04:00

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 school of architecture and public events platform in Accra, Ghana.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by African Futures Institute (@african_futures_institute)

Founded and directed by Lesley Lokko, the AFI aims to create a world-class teaching and research institute, in Accra, that will merge a wide range of built environment disciplines, from architecture to urban design, all through the lens of the African continent and the Diaspora. The AFI will offer a number of Masters-level programs, along with short courses and workshops for practicing architects. AFI’s first Masters-level program will be in architectural writing and criticism and is set to begin in 2024.

Previously on A...

Africa will hold the key to the future at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale

2022-06-01T15:36:00-04:00

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: “At an anthropological level, we are all African. And what happens in Africa, happens to us all.”

Under the direction of Lokko, the 18th International Architecture Exhibition will focus on the continent’s past history and potential to be a ‘workshop’ (in historian Richard Sennett’s understanding of the word as a ‘laboratory’) wherein the shared fate and destiny of mankind are being forged in areas of urbanization, public health, resilient design, and social justice.

Lokko pointed to models of African history as forerunners of change that ushered into this world institutions like the Tuskegee Institute and social causes such as the Civil Rights movement to the overall betterment of society. The exh...

The new Bët-bi Museum by atelier masōmī will continue a shift toward cultural justice in Senegal

2022-05-17T12:32:00-04:00

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 their native lands in a reversal of controversial practices which have been at the heart of many Western museum operations since their beginnings in Colonialism.

Image courtesy atelier masōmī

The studio beat out four other firms based in Africa for the commission, including Rwanda’s MASS Design Group and the Moroccan firm Aziza Chaouni Projects.

Located in the Kaolack region of southern Senegal, Bët-bi (or “The Eye” in Wolof) aims to position itself as an intermediary between Western art-collecting institutions and surrounding nations in addition to serving in its functional capacity as an educational fount to the area. In this regard, its mission and scope are similar to that of the planned Ed...

Pritzker Prize winner Diébédo Francis Kéré on why his childhood is keeping him motivated

2022-03-22T18:01:00-04:00

I never saw myself connected to this big thing. I was just using my skills to create comfortable spaces and beautiful schools and housing for my people. No, I never dreamed to see this work connected with Pritzker. No, no, never.

NPR’s Michel Martin got the newest Pritzker laureate and recently-named Dakar Goethe Institute designer to harken back to his childhood village in Burkina Faso, which he credited as a strong influence beginning with his educational experiences in darkened classrooms that frequently hovered around 100 degrees.

Recently on Archinect: Francis Kéré named 2022 Pritzker Prize winner

“Being in the village, you're thinking about big buildings, glass and whatever, far away,” Kéré told NPR. “And so in Burkina, that is it. The focus is the Western. But in my case, it's like you just have, you know, a tradition, which is strong, which has skills, which has some great things that I relate to the environment, to the ecology […] but people don't see it [as if] it has a value. And when we started, it cost me a lot of energy to really convince [them]. But a couple of years ago, people started to see that what I'm doing was the good solution.”

Related on Archinect: Francis Kéré and others are attempt...

Kéré Architecture breaks ground on new Goethe Institute center in Dakar

2022-02-23T15:49:00-05:00

Senegal is taking a big step towards further establishing itself as an architectural capital thanks to Francis Kéré’s design for the Goethe Institute that has officially broken ground in Dakar.

The 56-year-old architect was on hand Wednesday for a ceremony which included German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Goethe Institute’s Carola Lentz.

Exterior view of the Goethe Institute. Rendering by Goethe Institute.

Speaking at the ceremony, the architect mentioned the shared values that both he and the Institute share, stating that his climate-oriented approach to the project was met with an “open and sympathetic” response that encouraged him to “take things further” in a collaborative effort later outlined by Steinmeier.

Architect Francis Kéré, the Senegalese artist Baaba Mal, Senegalese Minister of Town Planning and Public Hygiene Abdoulaye Saydou Sow, and Federal President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Image courtesy Goethe Institute.

“I am optimistic that Africa and E...

Oliver Wainwright obsesses over the distinctive architecture of Dakar

2022-01-14T14:40:00-05:00

Their obsessive geometrical composition was an attempt to answer the call of Senegal’s first president, the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, for a national style that he curiously termed “asymmetrical parallelism”. Senghor never quite defined what this brave new style should look like, but he spoke vaguely of “a diversified repetition of rhythm in time and space”. Forceful, faceted forms and strong, rhythmic geometries became the vogue.

Dakar is known as a regional hub of modernism, which is equally the product of Senghor’s arts-centered vision and of its past colonial linkage. Wainwright traced the history of post-independence architecture in Senegal from the 1974 International Fair to Abdoulaye Wade’s controversial outsized African Renaissance Monument in Ouakam.

The Guardian critic appeared to be impressed by the city’s variety of styles and influences, offering Philipp Meuser and Adil Dalbai’s guide to the region as his bible and saying that it “offers a glimmer of hope from a new generation of young architects and engineers rediscovering vernacular techniques.”

“It is the postcolonial architecture of the 1970s and 80s that really stands out for its originality, much of it by Senegalese architects Cheikh Ngom and Pierre Goudiaby Atepa, as well as France’s Henri Chomette. They all developed a distinctive form of modernism in tune with President Senghor’s ideas of asymmetrical parallelism. Monolithic tapering p...

UNESCO's new World Heritage chief says its time to expand Africa's standing on the list of endangered sites

2021-12-22T15:59:00-05:00

“Despite its vast size, sub-Saharan Africa has never been proportionately represented on Unesco’s world heritage list… Now, the first African to be made head of the world heritage centre has said that needs to change – and fast. Lazare Eloundou Assomo, a Cameroonian who led the reconstruction of the Timbuktu mausoleums after they were badly damaged in 2012 by Islamist fighters allied to al-Qaida, has said it will be a priority of his time in office.”

Africa is currently the least represented continent (behind the Arab nations) in terms of the representation of cultural sites on the U.N. list, though it does account for 30% of all sites the organization considers to be endangered.

Assomo was appointed as Director earlier this month and told The Guardian he plans to pursue an ambitious strategy that will both protect and enhance the status of important sites spread throughout what he called “the cradle of Humankind.”

“The training and capacity-building of heritage experts is an area where we will have to put more emphasis on in the future to help address this imbalance,” he said. “Africa is today on the frontline of the effect of climate change. This is also something which makes us believe that mobilizing our efforts for existing world heritage sites in Africa should be a priority.”

Francis Kéré and others are attempting to muddy up the rising use of concrete in West Africa

2021-11-22T15:24:00-05:00

Architects, officials, and villagers confirm the trend: People are discarding traditional materials, mostly mud, in favor of concrete, as soon as they can afford it. As living standards increase making concrete more accessible, some of the world’s hottest, poorest landscapes are rapidly morphing from brown to cinder block grey.

Architects like Francis Kéré have been attempting to buck the trend of using concrete by experimenting with upgraded versions of terrestrial materials like mud bricks that simultaneously provide tools for community-building in developing countries like Burkina Faso.

Facade detail of Kéré Architecture's Burkina Institute of Technology. Photo: Jaime Herraiz.

The ancient material is much more heat-adaptable when compared to concrete, which is increasingly valuable in an area whose number of extreme heat days is expected to rapidly increase over the next three decades due to climate change.

“It’s a matter of time, it’s a matter of belief. It’s a matter of political will,” Kéré, told National Geographic. “But there’s a lot of accumulated knowledge now. In 10 years, you’re going to be surprised by our success.”

A domino-inspired design has been unveiled for Africa's potentially second largest tower

2021-09-03T18:42:00-04:00

A spiraling new supertower hopes to grace one of Tanzania’s most spectacular coastal islands thanks to an ambitious, albeit repurposed design from Dubai-based firm xcassia.

Taking its design from a set of dominoes, the proposed 70-story tower will inhabit a manmade island on the Zanzibar archipelago 100 miles away from the capital Dars es Salaam.

Once completed, the scheme could become the second-largest tower on the African continent as well as the first skyscraper to be built on a manmade island outside of Dubai.

Made up of 360 individual component “keys,” the 1.2-million-square-foot Zanzibar Domino Commercial Tower will play host to Africa's largest luxury hotel topped in addition to 500 residential units by an observation deck that offers visitors views of the surrounding Indian Ocean.

Related feature article on Archinect: The Emerging Female Architects of East Africa

According to the architect: “I dreamed of building this project for over a decade. Between its innate mathematic...

Adjaye Associates reveals designs for a massive new healthcare infrastructure project in Ghana

2021-08-26T14:09:00-04:00

As part of the architect’s ongoing commitment to his native country, David Adjaye has revealed designs for a massive new public infrastructure project that will provide over 100 new healthcare facilities to the people of Ghana.

Dubbed Agenda 111, the government-backed initiative will add 101 district hospitals as well as 10 new regional hospitals to the rapidly developing West African nation. The existing Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital will be provided with a much-needed restoration as well.

Courtesy Adjaye Associates

“By approaching the hospital as more than just a place for the provision of medical services, the design scheme aims to unlock the potential of this ambitious initiative by repositioning the hospital as a piece of community infrastructure that embodies sustainability, efficiency, and generously provides green spaces to facilitate wellness and healing,” the firm said in a statement.

Courtesy Adjaye Associates

Ghana’s infrastructure has been steadily improving since the...

Adjaye Associates unveils design for the new Africa Institute campus in Sharjah

2021-07-28T20:01:00-04:00

A new academic center will transform the skyline of the UAE’s third-largest city thanks to a partnership between a renowned architect and an ascendent academic institution dedicated to the study of Africa in the Arab world.

Adjaye Associates has released its designs for the new Africa Institute campus in the city of Sharjah. The project was announced in September following a two-year collaboration between the firm and the Institute first established in 1976.

The 343,000-square-foot plan will provide a new home for the Institute’s academic programs, which focus on African culture, languages, and the African Diaspora. Five reddish concrete blocks form a program of interconnected outdoor courtyards cooled by large overhangs and bookended by a post office roundabout in the city’s Al Mankah neighborhood.

Per the architect: “The project contemplates how one lives and learns, stimulated by this region where the language of the cour...

Francis Kéré's latest project brings a termite-inspired design to the Kenyan lowlands

2021-07-01T14:56:00-04:00

A new polytechnic training campus has sprung up in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, standing out in the sprawling lowlands region thanks to three terracotta-colored ventilation towers that took their inspiration from termite colonies in the growing East African technology hub.

Located on the banks of Lake Turkana, the new Startup Lions campus will provide education and jobs training for young Kenyans, the largest demographic group driving population growth in the country expected to double in size by 2050.

Kéré Architecture is responsible for the campus plan, which includes housing and workstation spaces for 200 students at the ICT facility. Outdoor classrooms shaded by a grove of pergolas and the profile of thee large cooling towers that will mitigate the Valley’s extreme heat and harmful desert sand, making learning easier in a scheme aimed at collaboration.

The German-based firm has been very active in African dev...

Sir David Adjaye receives RIBA Gold Medal at illustrious virtual event

2021-05-28T17:14:00-04:00

Earlier this week, on May 26th, celebrated Ghanaian-British architect Sir David Adjaye formally received the 2021 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Royal Gold Medal in a virtual ceremony. Surprise luminaries from around the world, including former U.S. President Barack Obama and U2 singer Bono, participated to congratulate Adjaye on his historic accomplishment.

Calling in from Ghana, Adjaye received his award from the UK’s high commissioner to Ghana, Iain Walker, on behalf of the Queen.

Sir David Adjaye receives the RIBA 2021 Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, presented by the British High Commissioner Iain Walker. Image: RIBA/Francis Kokoroko 2021

“It’s incredibly humbling and a great honor to have my peers recognize the work I have developed with my team and its contribution to the field over the past 25 years,” Adjaye said upon hearing the news that he received the Royal Gold Medal. “Architecture, for me, has always been about the creation of beauty to edify all people...

'Undoing of objectification:' Adjaye Associates unveils design for new Edo Museum of West African Art

2020-11-16T13:55:00-05:00

The three-story building, designed by David Adjaye, looks almost like a palace from the ancient Kingdom of Benin. On Friday, the architect, the British Museum and the Nigerian authorities also announced a $4 million archaeology project to excavate the site of the planned museum, and other parts of Benin City, to uncover ancient remains including parts of the city walls.

In October 2019, Adjaye Associates was selected to design a new museum to house historic artifacts looted by colonial powers in Benin City, modern-day Nigeria. Designs for this planned Edo Museum of West African Art were unveiled on Friday.

"We are proposing an undoing of the objectification that has happened in the West through full reconstruction," said Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye in a statement. "The new museum design reconstructs the inhabitation of these forms as pavilions that enable the recontextualization of artefacts. Decoupling from the Western museum model, this museum will perform as a reteaching tool — a place to instill an understanding of the magnitude and importance of these civilizations and cultures."

Image: Adjaye Associates

"Adjacent to the Oba’s Palace, the new EMOWAA draws inspiration from its historical architectural typologies and establishes its own courtyard in the form of a public garden, exhibiting a variety of indigenous flora and a canopy tha...

AIA San Francisco and the Center for Architecture + Design Present “Villages of West Africa” Exhibition

2020-02-27T18:55:00-05:00

This post is brought to you by AIA San Francisco

The American Institute of Architects, (AIASF) and the Center for Architecture + Design are launching the 2020 exhibition season with the opening of "Villages of West Africa: an intimate journey across time" on view February 27 to April 20 in the Center for Architecture + Design Gallery, 130 Sutter Street, Suite 600 in San Francisco.

Experience the tantalizing photography of Steven and Cathi House of House + House Architects whose diverse body of work reveal the remarkable beauty of the people, land, villages, textiles, and vernacular architecture across seven countries of West Africa, situated between the Sahara Desert and Atlantic Ocean.

With over 500 evocative photographs and insightful commentary, “Villages of West Africa: an intimate journey across time” reveals the remarkable beauty of the people, land, villages, textiles, and vernacular architecture across seven countries of West Africa, situated between the Sahara Desert and ...

Learning from the female architects behind Africa's tallest building

2019-08-12T16:00:00-04:00

Co-Arc International Architects director Catharine Atkins and architect Malika Walele are the leading women behind the 55-story building on Maude Street, which was designed by Co-Arc’s emeritus partner, Francois Pienaar.

In Sandton, Johannesburg stands the Leonardo, Africa's tallest building. Designed by the team of Co-Arc International Architects, the building stands at 55-stories tall and is set to be completed this year.

Besides the record-breaking height of the building, there's another aspect to this project that has made headlines: The design team behind the project is predominantly female-led. However, according to the Co-Arc team, this detail went unnoticed until a recent progress photo of the project emerged.

Co-Arc International Architects’ Director Catharine Atkins and professional architect Malika Walele are supported by Salome Daley, Janel Venter, Megan Holman, Angela Barnard, Keitsitse Losaba, Antonella Giuricich, Rachel Zwane and Mitchell Gibbon. Image courtesy of Co-Arc International Architects' Director Catharine Atkins.

According to TimesLIVE writer Alex Patrick, "The thought of an all-woman architect team doesn't sound groundbreaking until you consider only 21-percent of South Af...

Over 350 million trees planted in 12 hours in Ethiopia

2019-07-31T11:03:00-04:00

The burst of tree planting was part of a wider reforestation campaign named "Green Legacy," spearheaded by the country's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Millions of Ethiopians across the country were invited to take part in the challenge and within the first six hours, Ahmed tweeted that around 150 million trees had been planted.

The challenge presented to Ethiopian citizens this past Monday encouraged them to plant 200 million trees in one day. In the end, the nation succeeded by planting a total of "353,633,660 tree seedlings in 12 hours."

Ethiopia joined the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative along with 20 other African nations pledging to restore 100 million hectares of land. Ultimately, "the tree planting campaign aims to plant 4 billion trees" moving forward.

Montreal's CCA to study postcolonial perspectives on the architecture of the African continent

2019-07-29T13:12:00-04:00

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) is embarking on a new initiative aimed at understanding "architecture's historical role in decolonization, neocolonialism, globalization, and their manifestations" across the African continent, according to a recent announcement.

The focus on Africa's architecture represents a desire on the part of CCA to expand scholarly research efforts by reconsidering its archives in order to "challenge the reliance on Western sources by looking beyond institutional archives to others constructed around single buildings, international organizations, urban spaces, new policies, statistics, laws, photography, financial programs, and philosophical, intellectual, or cultural propositions."

Starting in October 2019, CCA will host an 18-month research effort in collaboration with 10 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation researchers to undertake this challenge. The scholars will develop projects that "seek to analyze and historicize the ways in which architecture manif...

rise International sets to launch first architecture and design library in Lesotho, Africa

2019-05-28T14:32:00-04:00

Blending social impact practices, architecture, and economic development initiatives the non-profit organization rise International aims to build and create Lesotho's first Architecture and Design library. From now until August 1st the African Library Project will be collecting books for rise International which will be shipped on a container to Lesotho in the Fallto.

rise International (Relationships Inspiring Social Enterprise) co-founded by BOND Events uses social impact efforts to help the people in Southern Africa gain resources to create sustainable social businesses and transform communities through design and architecture practices. Since their start in 2016, the organization provides aid through their professional network in the design and architecture industry.

Container conversion project into a computer lab and tuck shop. Image courtesy of rise International

rise links asp...

A closer look at Francis Kéré's colorful Coachella installation

2019-04-17T20:56:00-04:00

With the second weekend of Coachella underway, many festival-goers have already flooded social media with their experiences and favorite Instagrammable installations. Laid across the Coachella Valley are mesmerizing installations by architects and designers whose work blends art, architecture, and design exploration. One project in particular who has kept people buzzing is Francis Kéré's towered installation, Sarbalé Ke. Founder of Kéré Architecture Kéré was inspired by the Burkinabè baobab tree, a significant tree in African culture. Kéré reflected on the tree's cultural significance and used that as inspiration to further explore themes surrounding the topic of a village. The project's name Sarbalé Ke translates to "the House of Celebration" in Moore, a language spoke in various parts of Burkina Faso. Twelve baobab towers are placed around each other each varying in height and color.

Sarbalé Ke by Francis Kéré at the Coach...