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Customs made: Hikma religious and secular complex in Dandaji, Niger by Atelier MasōmīSubscription
Highly Commended for the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture 2020: creating spaces in Niger that both respect traditions and turn them on their head is just one of the specialities of Atelier Masōmī’s Mariam Kamara
African essays
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School gymnasium in Abidjan, Ivory Coast by Koffi and Diabaté Architectes
The lightweight and elegant school gym in Abidjan provides both ample shade and natural lighting
Make do and mend: care and maintenance in Burkina Faso
Practices of persistent upkeep in Burkina Faso are themselves a piece of heritage that must be maintained
Tropical tropes: Irish Modernism in West Africa
Irish missionaries in West Africa in the 20th century embraced the Tropical Modern of Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew while encouraging the substantial input of indigenous builders
Side effects: foreign oppression and otherness in Ng'ambo, Zanzibar Town
Following physical separation from Stone Town and colonial alienation, Ng’ambo is gradually shaking off the shackles of segregation
Migrating platforms: the remittance economy of migrant workers
Remittances from migrant workers hailing from the Global South are extremely important for both hosts and home
Belgian imperialism: the colonisation of the Congo
The architectural and urban colonial legacy of the Congo should not be seen through the prism of a Belgian-Congolese context, but from a global perspective
Unequal measures: the right to the city in Lagos and Addis Ababa
In African cities – as in cities all over the world – ‘building as development’ is depriving people of their right to the city, exacerbating inequality rather than diminishing it
Low Design Office: ‘For our generation, the only way to be radical is to build’
At Low Design Office’s Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform in the scrapyards of Accra, Ghana, new into old takes on a whole new meaning
Cairo’s Downtown: Omar Nagati on renegotiating Cairo through design
Renegotiating Downtown Cairo through design, Omar Nagati’s Cluster initiative aims at establishing a space for critical urban discourse and design practice
From camp to city: ‘Permanent is not the opposite of temporary’
The refugee camps of the Western Sahara allow us to rethink the notion of the nation state - and that of the citizen itself
‘Angola’s housing estates show a distinct lack of thought for cultural interaction’
The way in which such projects are procured, designed and delivered has to be reviewed and refined
Outrage: ‘Coordinated housing reform is crucial for cities in Africa to work’
In unplanned urban growth and informal settlements where the quality of life is low and land use is highly inefficient, effective policy is essential
David Adjaye: Urban Africa
The architecture is as diverse as the continent is large
African Modernism: Nation Building
As countries in Africa gained their independence, modernist architecture attempted to express their new identities
Editorial: Building, like birth, is an instinctual act fraught with radical risk and reward
Even in an architect-free zone, beauty is in the detail
‘The paradigm of development-aid-charity has come to dominate African architecture to the exclusion of almost everything else’
Only with change will Africa – confined by the expectation of being influenced rather than influencing – realise its true architectural potential
Drone Ranger: complexity and contradiction in Rwanda
The Norman Foster Foundation’s prototype drone port must negotiate the context of Rwanda’s hyperreal ‘Vision’
Media attention overload: the collapse of Makoko's floating school
If NLÉ’s project successfully prevented the eviction of the local community, its tragic collapse forces us to rethink the viability of photogenic architectural solutions in vulnerable settlements
Tropical Modernism: Fry and Drew's African Experiment
Iain Jackson looks back at the AR’s 1953 coverage of Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew’s projects in West Africa - its first appearance as a coherent body of work
A model village in Upper Egypt by Hassan Fathy
Hassan Fathy brings function and tradition to meet with aesthetic excellence in the earthen-built village of New Gourna
Ebola Epidemic: What can Architecture do?
Architect Killian Doherty’s practice in Sierra Leone is one of many affected by the Ebola outbreak. Here he reflects on the limits of architectural power against an immaterial enemy
Buffer zones and golf estates: Do we really need more Garden Cities?
From the Palestinian West Bank to apartheid townships the Garden City model has been continuously twisted into suburban anomalies across the globe
Lagos: A Model for the 21st Century City
From Lagos to Medellín, the generative energy of dense cities could drive the development of their fragile parent states, reports Seth Kaplan
Out of the Ashes: A Blueprint for Recovery
In the charged contexts that follow major atrocity and disaster, architecture is key to finding a means of recovery and redemption, writes Jon Snow
Rwanda Nouveau: Remodelling a Nation
Twenty years since the devastating genocide, Rwanda is a transformed nation. Killian Doherty reports on the capital’s attempt to remodel itself as the Singapore of Africa
View from Freetown, Sierra Leone
Political impotence and uninhibited economic inequalities stifle the vibrant cultural legacy traceable in Freetown’s urban grain, reveals Killian Doherty
Water World: Is the Future Floating?
In the face of dramatic changes in climate and increasing social inequality, could life on the water come to define urban planning?
Interview with Photographer Iwan Baan
‘For me it’s very important to look at a full spectrum, from working with people like Zaha Hadid or Rem Koolhaas or Herzog & de Meuron, to how people build for themselves out of pure necessity’
Orkidstudio's School in Zambia
Orkidstudio champion collaboration with local communities and crafts
Jhono Bennett's Slovo Park Project in Soweto
Jhono Bennett made his university project a reality to help develop an informal settlement
Tore H Grimstad, Assad Ansar and Andreas Brunvoll's Youth Centre in Senegal
A youth centre built in 10 weeks in an area with no electricity
Mandela's built legacy and a new dawn for african architecture
As the spotlight falls on Africa following the death of Nelson Mandela, a timely exhibition on the continent’s built environment gives cause for hope
Pedagogy: KIST, Kigali, Rwanda
Kigali Institute of Science & Technology sees an international faculty and 19 home grown students drive an african identity towards solving the social economic and development agenda in Rwanda
View from Chingola, Zambia
The experience of building a school in Zambia has given Guylee Simmonds and James Mitchell a unique perspective on the country’s wider challenges
View from Lagos, Nigeria
The biggest city in Africa needs an architectural impetus commensurate with its growing size and importance, say John Godwin and Gillian Hopwood
View From Dhaka
The political unrest that recently engulfed Dhaka highlights some of the cultural tensions discussed at this year’s CAA conference
Editorial View: Cultural Vandalism
The power of culture to reflect the best aspects of humanity does not always save it from the worst
Damage limitation
Islamist rebels destroy precious manuscripts in Timbuktu, Mali
View from St Louis, Senegal
Italo Calvino would have felt at home in Saint-Louis, the former capital city of Senegal, and the Venice of Africa, reports Paul Brislin
View From Cairo, Egypt
As Egypt advances towards democracy, opportunities open up for a more environmentally responsive architecture
Exploring Eye: West Africa's vernacular architecture
The relationship between climate, construction trends and human influence in West African vernacular architecture
Johannesburg: the development of a contemporary vernacular in the Transvaal
Nowhere in England, and indeed nowhere in Europe or North America, can such a consistently up-to-date neighbourhood be seen
South African archive
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Outrage: student movement from the margins to the heart of power
Africa has the world’s youngest population and the world’s oldest leaders – a divide challenged by the democratisation of social media
Family business: Empower Shack in Khayelitsha near Cape Town, South Africa by Urban-Think Tank and ETH Zurich
The Empower Shack prototypes in the township of Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, upgrades extended-family housing with built-in flexibility
The rough with the smooth: Ilze Wolff, Wolff Architects, South Africa
Women in Architecture Moira Gemmill Prize shortlist 2018: in South Africa, a country that has witnessed extreme marginalisation, Ilze Wolff strives to redress the balance
Zeitz geist: Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa by Heatherwick Studio
Heatherwick’s spectacular cultural building in Cape Town is not entirely at ease with its financial bedfellows
The Table House in Cape Town, South Africa by Noero Architects and Rainer Hehl
From the most elemental ingredients of architecture comes a future for those who lack it most
Blurring Boundaries: the legacy of Apartheid towns
The legacy of apartheid by design will take generations to rectify
Code yellow: Vredenburg Hospital in South Africa by Wolff Architects
The extension to Vredenburg Hospital by Wolff Architects integrates a history of piecemeal additions
Durban Renewal: Pixley House by Designworkshop : SA
The Pixley House refurbishment reconciles desire with emergent conditions
South African Syntheses
A basic historical primer outlining South Africa’s architectural evolution from earliest times to the present day reveals a peculiarly fertile synthesis of indigenous and foreign influences
‘Speak up, speak out, speak back’: Africa Architecture Awards 2017
The Africa Architecture Awards 2017 bear testimony to a robust culture of architectural critical discourse on the continent, keeping threats of modern-day colonialism at bay
Street Values: Johannesburg’s spatial agents
Spatial analysis of Bree Street in Johannesburg questions the universality of globalisation and reveals potential for new forms of urbanity to emerge
Diary: Zahira Asmal in Johannesburg
Director of Designing_South Africa Zahira Asmal reports on the project for a new ‘place-making’ pavilion for Jo’burg, a dreamed opportunity to rethink the role of urban public space in the city and turn Park Station, the continent’s biggest transport node, into a new gateway to South Africa
Street Values: Reading Johannesburg
Spatial analysis of Bree Street in Johannesburg questions the universality of globalisation and reveals potential for new forms of urbanity to emerge
Blurred Lines: the UIA Congress in Durban, South Africa
An irrepressible commitment to architecture which bridges divisions and addresses social concerns across the Global South and beyond defined the 2014 UIA congress in Durban
South African promising developments
South Africa’s new developments offer promising ‘places of light’ and aim to transform Johannesburg into a true melting-pot city
Pedagogy: University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Taking local marginalised neighbourhoods as urban laboratories students at UJ are encouraged to design radical schemes rooted in context
Museum in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, by Noero Wolff Architects
An apartheid museum that celebrates the ordinary is South Africa’s latest attempt to come to terms with its past
Living space: Red Location, South Africa
Red Location’s evolving cultural precinct explores ideas about placemaking and the African urban realm
Star House by OpenStudio, Karoo Desert, South Africa
Celebrating invention and authenticity, the AR presents a snapshot of work in progress from around the world
Writing the City into Being: Essays on Johannesburg 1998-2008 by Lindsay Bremner
Bremner speaks of a way of being in the world that is nomadic
Rob Richardson − University of Cape Town, South Africa
[Shortlist: 10 students from around the world] The AR highlights 10 emerging architecture students from renowned architecture schools across the world
South Africa – Will the World Cup bring economic change
World Cup development seems at odds with the inconvenient urban truth
Thusong Service Centre by Makeka Design Laboratory, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa
Mokena Makeka’s new sports community centre in a Cape Flats township shows how to make decent, dignified architecture that uplifts its surroundings. Photography by Dennis Gilbert
Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre by Peter Rich Architects, Mapungubwe National Park, South Africa
Set in a spectacular but remote veld landscape, Peter Rich Architects’ Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre exemplifies contemporary African architecture. Photography by Obie Oberholzer
David Adjaye (1966 - )Subscription
An architect who cares more about the opinions of his clients and collaborators than those of critics and peers
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