Located in the heart of a plantation system, the research centre designed by Rem Koolhas led OMA in Congo aims to become a vector for a social and ecological shift. Designed by the OMA, this White Cube is a central element of the Lusanga International Research Centre for Art and Economic Inequality (LIRCAEI). Located in the heart of the plantation system and at the crossroads of global inequali...
OKHA has just released their exploration of abstract geometry in The Stone Rug Collection. Much like the emoji’s of iSpeak or the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, the South African Nguni (Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele and Swazi) visual lineage uses graphic geometry to instantly communicate messages such as gender, social status, and uses colour to represent mood.
The project is located in downtown Maputo, capital of Mozambique. Due to both economic growth and speculation in recent years, the urban pressure in the centre of the city has resulted in a series of new buildings being built in its main avenues, some even of disproportionate height.
The Swiss federal office for buildings and logistics recently acquired a piece of land for the construction of a new embassy in the Rosslyn green estate, a residential area just outside the centre of Nairobi
A campus to serve as the headquarters for the Morvest Business Group is situated adjacent to the Ben Schoeman highway. The client is a rapidly growing holding company requiring a flexible programme to house the various constituent companies and their associated functions. The campus comprises three buildings (two three-storey office buildings and a single-storey training and events centre) orie...
The main target regarding the LAP residential complex is not only to provide a luxury compound of modern villas with all the full residential services, allowing a sophisticate and environmental way to live in the growing town in a peaceful, tranquil and familiar way. The main issue that substantially stays back the idea of this plan is the reinterpretation of the African identity, reinventing t...
The house is situated on a golf course in a residential estate close to Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa. The brief called for a contemporary minimalist house that provided security and privacy, while exploiting the golf course views. The site is exposed to extremely windy conditions year-round and protected outdoor living areas were a necessity. A priced collection of antique Cape furnitu...
The ecomo home is a compact home designed for modern, simple living in collaboration with nature. The design is based on basic sustainable, green design principles. The ecomo home offers a low-maintenance, modern, well-designed green housing alternative.
Our client purchased the site, after we had completed an initial Design Concept for the previous property owner. Our client loved the design, and the visual direction the home was going, and accordingly shaped his brief around the design he saw.
The project forms part of a larger renovation to a freestanding villa located high up on the slopes of the Vlakkenberg. The clients required a pavilion within their extensive and beautiful garden, from which to appreciate the natural landscape around them.
DAR is a family house on the Northern coast of Tunisia, overlooking the sea. The project consists in two separate volumes strongly connected to the garden, the pool and the sea view, set on top of a massive "platform".
This vacation beach house located near Cape Town, South Africa, is carefully crafted to respond directly to the brief from the client, a maverick businessman from Johannesburg. Primary requirements were to create an extraordinary living experience, conceptually capture the client’s brief to create a single space vacation house and fully embrace the remarkable seaside location.
The Why Not Academy is a school but above all a multifusion center for the Mabatini community, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the Mathare slum in Nairobi. The school building project takes place in several phases. In the first phase of construction, wooden calls (twin pillars) were left in view of extending the school on a second floor.
In February 2014, Orkidstudio broke ground on a new girls’ school in Kenema, in the eastern region of the country, employing as many as seventy men and women from the local community each day. The Swawou Foundation sought to provide extensive new learning facilities for up to 120 young girls from the local area. First set up in 2009 by Ahmed Jaward and Kirsty Wood, it was the only school around...
The site consists of three separate but adjacent sites forming one entity, located in the heart of Higgovale, which lies upslope from the Cape Town CBD and below Table Mountain. All three sites are traversed by a “DONGA” – a dry river course. The overall site, roughly triangular, is bounded by Glen Avenue to the South and East, public open space (a Pine forest) to the West and houses to the Nor...
Urko Sanchez Architects releases the newly completed Swahili gem in Tudor creek, a development that explores the complexities of traditional cultural extrapolations and the rigor of environmental comfort within the modern demands of aesthetics. This is a scheme that is terse but pith in the way it handles the elements that it sets out to tackle and ultimately explores the narrow and delicate el...
The inaugural Africa Architecture Awards has just shared with us the 20 shortlisted projects out of an unprecedented 307 entered projects situated in 32 African countries.
The KN10 building – among the first to be completed by COSTA LOPES and home to its head offices – roots itself in its location in Rua Kwame N’Krumah, opposite to Rua Moisés Cardoso, a continuation of the upper city ridge (one of Luanda´s main urban structures) and, on the other hand, in its generic programme which at the time met the need for qualified office spaces. It also takes in account th...
The new chapel, set within a vineyard in South Africa, is designed by South-African born Coetzee Steyn of London-based Steyn Studio. Its serene sculptural form emulates the silhouette of surrounding mountain ranges, paying tribute to the historic Cape Dutch gables dotting the rural landscapes of the Western Cape. Constructed from a slim concrete cast shell, the roof supports itself as each undu...
The American International School of Johannesburg is an independent school in South Africa serving students grades PreK-12. The school’s main campus in Johannesburg is sited on 58-acres of land located on the city’s northern edge. Formerly a horse farm, the school’s original buildings recall their rural roots in their building materials; white brick used to construct existing buildings remember...
The house is set on a secluded, tranquil stand surrounded by established trees. The main house consists of 2 wings: the living wing and the bedroom wing. Both wings have long, low roofs which appear to float over and past them. These roofs are supported on external steel posts, as all of the walls stop short of the ceiling, with clerestory windows on top of all internal and external walls. The ...
This house has been designed to be highly flexible and adapt to the owners' changing needs. The house has two skins throughout: the sliding glass windows and doors, and the sliding timber shutters, which enable the owners to constantly transform the look and feel of the spaces to suit their activities, the weather and the time.
Arijiju lies on the lowland. The building behaves as though it has always been on that warm stone hillside with living, grassed roofs that move with the air and link into the earth and forest. It is there but not there. Partly sculptured into the rock bed, the subtle entrance opens into a fragrant, greened space with generous Swahili curves and an air of elastic calm. Walls of stone create walk...
This contemporary home is located on South Africas’ West coast, 90kms north of Cape Town. Taking full advantage of the ocean views and responding to the coastal dune context, Gavin Maddock describes it as ‘a spectacular site’. The brief called for a ‘modern’ house with ocean views and observance of a budget, including the standard accommodation requirements. With the front dune sitting up a lit...
The 600 square metre Villa was commissioned by a contemporary art dealer in Algeria as her new home and a place to host her private collection and some small events related to the art gallery. Given the harsh condition of the sun during good part of the year and at the same time the need to control the light in terms of quantity and quality to exhibit and protect the art pieces, it was decided ...
The Royal Mansour is the result of pure inspiration: a dream made real, and a spectacular recreation of a beautiful way of life. The very soul of Morocco is reflected in the fulfilment of this vision, one that is faithful to architectural tradition, and honours both heritage crafts and contemporary artistic talent. Yet its most memorable aspect is its sense of welcome – that’s where the real ma...
Mine is a love affair for hospitals, the intricate network of life saving corridors, the healing gardens, the mini nursing stations within inpatient departments and macro doctor’s plazas in outpatient, the entire experience weaves and interworks into one giant life-saving machine. And the General Hospital of Niger is this and then some, an ode to the principals of Florence Nightingale compacted...
Arup set for themselves a challenge to sort out the dilapidated Durban train station feeding the Moses Mabhida Stadium, and the volumes that resulted were ones commensurate with movement, interchange and mobility. The station provides a link between the rail tracks and the overhead bridge that spills onto the road next to the Stadium. It was envisioned as a solution to mass transit from the sta...
Located at the very end of a traditional village facing the Atlas Mountains, its earth blocks create an enigmatic first impression when seen from below. Echoing old surrounding houses, those volumes constitute the ultimate built layer of the village before the great emptiness.After reaching the main level located on top of an outdoor stairway, a black infinity pool brings the sight far south. C...
Villa Agava is a contemporary house, Yes, but not in the conventional sense. It explores the tenets of traditional Moroccan space planning, manouvering the modern building codes and council requirements to achieve elements of privacy, solidarity in forma and the good old courtyard expereince. It is easy to see how Driss Kettani, in this instance apart from the dynamic duo of Amine Siana and Saa...