Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.

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White Cube/ OMA

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 Digs into African Abstract Geometry for the Stone Rug Collection

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.

Armando Tivane 178 / Promontorio

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.

Embassy of Switzerland in Nairobi / Roeosli Maeder Architects

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

Making a Case for the Renaissance of Traditional African Architecture

Last September, Nigerian Afrobeat musician Wizkid played to a sold-out house at the Royal Albert Hall in London, joining a growing list of illustrious African musicians, such as Selif Kaita, Youssou Ndour, Miriam Makeba and others, that have performed at that prestigious venue. This event affirmed the unfolding cultural renaissance across the continent, but it also signified the rising global i...

Morvest Headquarters / Anthrop Architects

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...

Christian Benimana on The Next Generation Of African Architects And Designers

Christian Benimana wants to build a network of architects who can help Africa's booming cities flourish in sustainable, equitable ways -- balancing growth with values that are uniquely African. From Nigeria to Burkina Faso and beyond, he shares examples of architecture bringing communities together. A pan-African movement of architects, designers and engineers on the continent and in diaspora a...

LAP Marina Residence / 5+1AA Alfonso Femia Gianluca Peluffo + Peia Associati

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...

House Steyn / Thomas Gouws Architects

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 / Pietro Russo

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.

Nettleton 195 / SAOTA

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.

Terra Lodge Hotel / Ramos Castellano Arquitectos

In the middle of the Atlantic ocean, in the island of Sao Vicente, in a dry windy island where only rain in August. A France trekking guide decides to build his own hotel for the incoming tourists that want to go trekking in the nearest mountain island of Santo Antao.

The Midden Garden Pavilion / Metropolis Design

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 / Atelier FL

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".

Urban Patios / Pedro Sousa

The Angolan urban patios explore the home as a city and the city as a home. Architecture and a city are different manifestations of the same theme. The city isn’t simply the reunion of buildings or houses; it is a big and complex building.

Rooiels Beach House / Elphick Proome Architects

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.

Mass Design Group's Documentary Made In Ilima Premieres at Architecture and Design Film Festival

On Friday, November 3rd 2017 at 9:00pm, MASS premiered a new feature-length documentary film titled Made in Ilima at the Architecture and Design Film Festival (ADFF)in New York City.In the center of Equator Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Ilima community remains one of the most isolated in the world. They have coexisted with endangered wildlife in their surrounding forest ...

Antonio Esposito Reimagines the New City Of Mengomeyene In Equatorial Guinea With A Series Of Elaborate Graphics

In this set of hand drawings, Antonio Esposito reimagines the city of Mengomeyene in a series of Graphic images for the foundation plan of the new city in Equatorial Guinea.

The Why Not Academy / Gaetano Berni, Ivan Cosentino and Giulia Celentano

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.

Swawou Girls School / Orkidstudio

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...

Lycée Schorge Secondary School / Kere Architecture

Located in the third most populated city in Burkina Faso, the Lycée Schorge Secondary School not only sets a new standard for educational excellence in the region, it also provides a source of inspiration by showcasing locally-sourced building materials in an innovative and modern way.

Bridge House / Van Der Merwe Miszewski Architects

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...

Tudor Swahili Gem Apartments / Urko Sanchez Architects

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...

UJ GSA Lecture Series: David Adjaye on Unlearning Everything and Redoing it Again

David Adjaye explored a returning to the renaissance in African architecture yesterday at the University of Johannesburg Graduate School of Architecture in an engaging heart to heart with Lesley Lokko where he implored upon the need to radically explore architecture from always the new rather than projecting upon them before the actual solution, deeper meaning or discussion of the situation is ...

Africa Architecture Awards Announces 20 Shortlists For the Inaugural 2017 Fete

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.

KN10 / Costa Lopes

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...

Bosjes Chapel / Steyn Studio

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...

American International School Johannesburg Aquatics Center / Flansburgh Architects

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...

Ecological house in Gambia / Virai Arquitectos

At the seaside just outside Tujereng, west Gambia, a house has been built for a family of three children and some bungalows to accommodate tourists. The architects aim was to make this buildings ecological, cozy and rooted in its context. The goal from the very beginning was to construct ecological buildings with references to and in harmony with local housing traditions. The buildings are dist...

House 02 Hyde Park / Daffonchio & Associates Architects

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 ...