The home is a fundamental expression of architectural movements within the fabric of a city. As one of the smallest typologies, it is the simplest canvas to exhibit the design ethos of any particular era. African cities have continuously negotiated the meaning of their residential dwellings, from traditional architecture to colonial architecture, and the influx of post-colonial modern architecture. Vernacular architecture explored homes with spatial patterns rooted in cultural dexterity, envelopes built with indigenous materials and forms, endowed with traditional motifs. These were in stark contrast to colonial homes that featured a range of imported architectural styles across the continent, neglecting their climatic and cultural contexts while amplifying social class.
The post-colonial period witnessed a myriad of architectural styles and movements. Notably, Tropical Modernism, with its birth in West Africa, comprises Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and the Gold Coast (Ghana). This movement embodied environmental design, with buildings made to pay allegiance to their contextual climate, interiors curated to provide comfort, and forms built to express the aesthetics of a country’s independence. They were explorations carried out by foreign-born architects who were state commissioned in these countries; it was a top-down approach towards city building, where only economically buoyant projects were the beneficiaries. The movement flourished in defining institutional buildings such as churches, schools, and parliaments but struggled with its influence and sustainability in residential architecture. This created a gap in the educational dialogue between these architects, the country’s young architecture profession, prospective clients, and everyday home builders.
It further opened the borders to an influx of various styles, imitating the architecture and innovation interpretations from foreign contexts, alienating indigenous local materials, pushing climatic factors as secondary, all to exhibit an architecture termed as contemporary, and has become the fundamental template for most homes.
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Why African Vernacular Architecture Is Overdue for a RenaissanceBut what exactly is contemporary architecture? Unlike any other movement, it has not posed a definite style or a fixed message. It is even argued not to be a movement, but through the lens that sees it as one, its message is to reflect trends and innovation of the current times. This is why its styles, forms, spatial patterns, and building behaviour differ within different contexts. It has also led to the birth of styles such as deconstructivism and postmodernism, making it a diverse template open to interpretation. A template African architecture can adopt, neglect the existing foreign results, redefine its narrative, make it theirs, and propose it to the world.
The continent is currently experiencing a global export of its music, fashion, and other forms of art. Its architecture is slowly following suit and searching for a renaissance, a resurgence that reinvents the best qualities of its traditional architecture. This time, a bottom-up approach should be favoured towards city building. One that starts with the home and uses it as a template to redefine what is contemporary within the African context.
The house would be seen as an experiment, exploring new forms of living with its spatial patterns. It takes a chance on local materials, innovates new use cases for them, and is fit to respond to extreme climatic conditions in some contexts. It rethinks the meaning of motifs in buildings, presenting itself as an exemplary case study house that will interact with society, affecting the development of other homes and providing lessons for other typologies. These houses will be platforms for education, and their innovative material systems will be accessible to builders. As homes, they will grow to be cultural points of reference.
Moreover, as the prospect of more iterations looms, there are already existing structures that can play similar roles and provide valuable insights. The Joe Osae-Addo House in Accra, Ghana is a prime example. Designed and built by the Ghanaian-born architect himself in 2004, it showcases an innovative use of indigenous building materials and a spatial pattern inspired by rural Ghanaian houses. The house eliminates interior lobbies and instead provides an exterior balcony that wraps around the building. It also raises the form 3ft from the ground to promote cooling and allows for cross ventilation by placing spaces from end to end. The exterior is a collage of wooden screens and glass louvres within the adobe brick form, exploring "light, cross ventilation, and a lightness of structure" as described by the architect. The house serves as a reference for the use of local materials and is used by the architect to teach builders in the community.
Another noteworthy example is the new culture studio in Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria. It was designed and owned by the Nigerian-born artist and designer Demas Nwoko, who turned his private residence into a community art institution starting in 1964. He extended his philosophy of innovating building elements from local materials found on-site to the design of the studio. Bricks were made from excavated laterite soil and left unfinished to showcase the colour variations that reflect the earth strata they are from. Trees uprooted from the site were also repurposed as flooring, doors, windows, and roofing framework. These elements were assembled into a stacked 2-storey form and designed to substitute windows for ventilation and light portals. The portals create pathways for cool air to come in at lower levels and hot air to escape at higher levels while keeping out intense heat and light from the sun. The studio is a distinctive building in the community and attracts artists, artisans, architects, and professionals who come to learn about its design ethos while celebrating art.
Ultimately, case study houses can play a role in the renaissance of African architecture, starting from the smallest iterations of the most basic typology. This approach can initiate a bottom-up design exploration, where ideas are easily accessible and can be interrogated and reworked into new prototypes. As a result, a language for Afro-contemporary homes can be derived and its ethos defined.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: The Contemporary Home, proudly presented by BUILDNER.
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Editor's Note: This article was originally published on April 14, 2023.
