Press & Publications

Makoko, a Nigerian shantytown on the marshy waterfront of Lagos, is not exactly Venice, but there are marked similarities between the two. Both are built on wooden piles driven into saline mud and tidal ooze. The streets of both are famously full of water. Both were settled by fishing communities, Venice – officially – in AD 421, Makoko at some time in the 18th century. Their populations are of a similar size – 60,000 in Venice, around 80,000 in Makoko – although no one knows for certain.

Rapid urbanisation and climate change are two key challenges facing the modern metropolis. The community of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria, is overly familiar with both issues. Makoko is an aquatic community of some 100 000 people who live on housing units built on stilts in the water. There’s no land, no roads and no formal infrastructure… an informal Venice of Africa, if you will.

Makoko Floating School featured at the London Festival of Architecture 2013.

Atlas of the Unbuilt World, the British Council’s international exhibition for the London Festival of Architecture 2013, has opened at the Bartlett School of Architecture in central London. 60 architectural models gathered from across the world will be on display for visitors to investigate and compare. The exhibition is free and will be open until 27 June.

In Makoko, a sprawling slum on the waterfront of Lagos, Nigeria, tens of thousands of people live in rickety wood houses teetering above the fetid lagoon. It’s an old fishing village on stilts, increasingly battered by floods from heavy rains and rising seas. Because the settlement was becoming dangerous, the government forcibly cleared part of it last year. Kunle Adeyemi, a Nigerian architect, had a better idea….

The floating school of Makoko The Floating Public School by NLÉ architects, photographed by Iwan Baan, creates a new symbolic focus and identity for the Makoko fishing community (Lagos, Nigeria), where families live on stilt-houses in the lagoon of an ever-growing megalopolis. An architectural construction in local wood made using “techniques” developed by the community, and floated… Continue reading ABITARE – MAY 2013

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