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Hot young Spanish architects José Selgas and Lucía Cano of SelgasCano have designed a pop-up exhibition pavilion for the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art's latest exhibition, Africa: Architecture, Culture, Identity. Made of low-cost materials, such as scaffold poles and plastic sheets, which the architects have jazzed up inspired by traditional sub-Saharan settlements, the pavilion is due to travel to Kenya. The show in leafy Humlebaek near Copenhagen closes at the end of September. — theartnewspaper.com
SelgasCano's airy, bright and colorful pavilions are a sought-after commodity this summer: less than a month ago, the practice unveiled its completed design for the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion in London.To learn more about the Africa: Architecture, Culture, Identity exhibition, click here. View full entry
“There was an intense flowering of experimental and futuristic architecture in the 1960s and 70s, which the young African countries used to express their national identities,” says [Swiss architect Manuel] Herz, who has curated an exhibition of more than 80 buildings from sub-Saharan Africa, showing at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, until May. “But we simply don’t know about it... we wanted to show this incredible cultural wealth that also exists.” — The Guardian
Usually the projects of African "big man" leaders, the modernist buildings were often constructed for propagandistic purpose and tended to be designed by European architects. Noted architectural photographer Iwan Baan took many of the photographs in Herz's exhibit. View full entry
The rural village of Sinthian in southeastern Senegal is home to the THREAD arts center, a new artists' residency and cultural community space set to open this March. The idea for the arts center originated from the long-term efforts of doctor and local Sinthian leader, Magueye Ba, who spearheaded... View full entry
The winners of the Holcim Awards 2014 Africa Middle East regional competition were recognized in a recent awards ceremony in Beirut, making it the fourth installment of the 2014 global awards program. The Africa Middle East competition focused on multi-disciplinary design solutions for building social and environmenal resilience...The winning projects will be implemented in nine countries including Turkey, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Palestine, Rwanda, and Morocco. — bustler.net
Check out a selection of the Africa - Middle East winners:HOLCIM AWARDS GOLD 2014 - Eco-Techno Park: Green building showcase and enterprise hub, Ankara, TurkeyAUTHOR: Onat Öktem and Zeynep Öktem, ONZ Architects, Ankara, TurkeyHOLCIM AWARDS SILVER 2014 - Evergreen City: Urban pine forest... View full entry
Congolese performance and theater group Studios Kabako from Kisangani was announced as the 2014 Curry Stone Design Prize winner this past weekend at an awards ceremony in Brussels...Studios Kabako was established in 2001 to address the various emotions linked to the aftermath of civil war. Located in a city that is isolated geographically and culturally, the studio has provided its community a safe creative haven of dance, theater, and music through its urban interventions and cultural programs. — bustler.net
Studios Kabako will start a U.S. tour including in New York from October 21 to November 1, 2014, with two performances at the BRIC theater in Brooklyn.The studio will receive a $100,000 grant prize, and were also featured in a short documentary by the Curry Stone Foundation, which you can watch... View full entry
The first feature of the Resilience Partnership will be the launch of a multi-phase resilience design challenge, focused on bringing people and organizations from a diverse set of industries together to collaborate on bold and innovative solutions to the toughest resilience challenges facing the three focus regions. — rockefellerfoundation.org
The rainy season coincides with summer in Dakar, which means it’s the power-cut days. The heat goes up, A/Cs kick into gear and the power utility, Senelec, cannot cope. [...]
Enter solar. This potential renewable savior is a latecomer to Dakar because until recently solar power was banned in cities, as it was considered what the French pointedly call “compétition déloyale” – unfair competition.
But under pressure from Dakar’s own citizens, the ban was lifted under the last government [...].
— nextcity.org
China’s visible impact on urban development in Africa is substantial. One need only take a virtual bird’s-eye tour on Google Earth to catch a glimpse of some of the most impressive changes brought to Africa by Chinese constructors, developers and designers. Not far from the Angolan capital of Luanda lies arguably one of the most impressive examples: Kilamba New City. A massive housing development designed to accommodate 500,000 people [...]. — gowestproject.com
With the 2014 FIFA World Cup just coming to a spectacular finale in Brazil, it's a perfect moment for Architecture for Humanity to announce the completion of 20 centers for 2010, a Football For Hope program and partnership legacy of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.Launched in 2007 by FIFA and... View full entry
DESIGNING_SOUTHAFRICA (D_ZA) in collaboration with the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) and the Mayor of Johannesburg are proud to announce the construction of an urban pavilion designed by world-renowned architect David Adjaye OBE. To be constructed in a public space within the Park Station Precinct in Johannesburg’s inner city, the project will highlight this historical junction in the city, while activating underutilised public space using innovative design. — designingsouthafrica.com
Adjaye's design will be unveiled at a public event on September 23, 2014. View full entry
The documentary Lagos Wide and Close - An Interactive Journey into an Exploding City, arose from Rem Koolhaas' 2001 visit to Lagos, Nigeria with filmmaker Bregtje van der Haak, hoping to document a phase in one of Africa's fastest growing cities. The doc's unique direction allows viewers to... View full entry
The South African city is World Design Capital 2014, yet residents of Khayelitsha township live in cramped, unhygienic conditions. The need for long-promised urban reform is urgent. [...]
“Cape Town is a paradise for the minority, but I could hope for a city where everyone has access to the same opportunities that I have,” says Wolff. “Mandela may have postponed revolution – but for how much longer is the question.”
— theguardian.com
The disaster capitalists behind Eko Atlantic have seized on climate change to push through pro-corporate plans to build a city of their dreams, an architectural insult to the daily circumstances of ordinary Nigerians. — Guardian
Martin Lukacs argues that Eko Atlantic, a new privatized city to be built near Lagos, Nigeria, is the perfect illustration of how the super-rich will exploit the crisis of climate change to increase inequality and seal themselves off from its impacts. View full entry
It is with great sadness that we report that Australian/British architect and public interest designer Ross Langdon, 32, was among those killed in the terrorist attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in recent days. He was killed alongside his partner, Elif Yavuz, who worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Kenya, and was just two weeks from her due date to give birth to their first child. — publicinterestdesign.org
The Lagos state commissioner for housing, Adedeji Olatubosun Jeje, provided a different version of events.
“It’s a regeneration of a slum,” he said. “We gave enough notification. The government intends to develop 1,008 housing units. What we removed was just shanties.
— NYT
Adam Nossiter covers recent slum clearance efforts led by the governor of Lagos, Babatunde Fashola. As Lagos aims to become a premier business center, the city’s poor and homeless are becoming the government’s enemy. Last week, parts of Badia East (with perhaps... View full entry
