Media & Press

World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 (WDC 2014) is pleased to announce the appointment of an International Advisory Council (IAC) to support the Cape Town initiative. Through the call for nominations, there are three nominees representing local and African design while Icsid (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) nominated two individuals from the international… Continue reading International Advisory Council for World Design Capital 2014, Cape Town – May 2014

The Afrofuture exposition (at the Milan Design Week) convened exports from the continent to consider the impact on African cities of some of the key questions from various disciplines including architecture, politics and technology…. One topic that provoked animated discussion was new designs coming from the continent. This followed the presentation by Kunlé Adeyemi, a young Nigerian architect practicing in Amsterdam and Lagos. He gave an illustrated talk on a school project he created for an aquatic village called Makoko in Lagos. Adeyemi belongs to a new and stimulating generation of African architects whose works are shaping the unfolding narrative of contemporary African architecture….

Over the last couple months winter storms have lashed the Massachusetts coastline, leading to flooding in Boston and other low-lying towns. As the Globe reported, the storm surges have prompted Boston officials to recast the city’s plans for dealing with rising sea levels. In that process, they might do well to look at similar planning… Continue reading The Boston Globe – MARCH 2013

Architect Kunle Adeyemi explains the logistics of building houses in the village of Makoko, Nigeria – Errol Barnett, CNN Inside Africa

A three-storey floating school will soon be used in Makoko, a poverty stricken community on the flooded coastline of Nigeria’s capital. The new primary school in the Lagos slum is built on a foundation of 256 plastic drums. Powered by solar panels on the roof, it will be able to accommodate more than 100 students.

Someday, whole floating cities could even migrate from one coastal area to another, giving urbanization mobility.

There are no roads or much infrastructure of any kind in the floating world of Makoko, a shantytown flowing out from Lagos, Nigeria’s waterfront. Teetering atop small piers, the maze of tenuous wooden structures is frequently inundated by floods. Like many coastal cities, Lagos’ burgeoning population is faced with the increasing threat of more frequent… Continue reading Architectural Record – March 2013

Unpredictable climate changes along the world’s most vulnerable coastal communities, have produced some fascinating design solutions that test the resiliency of architectural possibilities and the need for adaptation that will produce these changes. The coastal community of Makoko, a slum neighborhood, off the Lagos Lagoon in Lagos, Nigeria, is receiving an upgrade to its current… Continue reading ARCHDAILY – MARCH 2013

The usual approach to building in a flood zone is to put everything on stilts, as many residents of Rockaway, Queens, are considering in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. That’s also been the approach in the slum settlement of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria, where many residents live in illegal wood shanties propped up on stilts,… Continue reading Architizer – March 2013

MAKOKO, the coastal community in Lagos, hosted dignitaries and members of the international community last week, as a school, which was constructed on the Lagos Lagoon with an amazing input of Dutch marine architecture, was formally opened to the public.