David Adjaye was announced as the lead designer of the Barbados Heritage District, dedicated to documenting and recounting the impact of slavery on Barbados as well as cultures and nations in the Western hemisphere. The project will comprise a memorial, a museum and a research institute, the latter in charge of presenting Barbados’s pivotal role within the slave trade history as the place of departure for millions of enslaved Africans towards the Americas. The Heritage District, whose announcement closely follows Barbados’ transition to a parliamentary republic, marks a cornerstone in the development of the country’s identity more than five decades after declaring its independence from Britain.

Adjaye Associates has unveiled the design of The Africa Institute, the first center of its kind dedicated to the advanced study and research of Africa and the African diaspora living in the Arab world. The 31,882-square-meter campus will be built in downtown Sharjah, UAE, and will "introduce an entirely new type of thinking and mission into the global academic arena".

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Sir David Adjaye has created an inclusive new vision for Princeton University Art Museum’s new building. Located at the heart of the campus, the project will replace and roughly double the square footage of the existing facility. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2021 with an anticipated opening in late 2024.

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Adjaye Associates have been selected as the winners of The Abrahamic Family House competition, in Abu Dhabi. The landmark project, on Saadiyat Island, is a space where 3 religions will come together with the implementation of a mosque, a synagogue, and a church.

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Sir David Adjaye has been selected as design architect for the new Princeton University Art Museum. Working in collaboration with executive architect Cooper Robertson, Adjaye will engage with the design of a “cultural gateway” located on the museum’s current site at the center of Princeton’s campus.

The new museum will present “dramatically enlarged space” to exhibit and showcase the institution’s extensive collections, as well as classrooms and office space for 100 staff.

In discussion with Calvin Tomkins for a 2013 profile in The New Yorker, David Adjaye spoke intensely on the significance of his Sugar Hill Development. “Context,” said Adjaye, “is so important, not to mimic but to become part of the place. I wanted a building that acknowledges its surroundings.” The recently-completed project is the brainchild of Ellen Baxter, leader of Broadway Housing Communities (BHC), a non-profit that has made strides to create innovative housing schemes in Upper Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood. In an era where mixed-used developments are routine, Sugar Hill adds new dimensions to the typology by uniting affordable apartments, an early childhood education center, offices for the BHC, and the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling.

In conjunction with their full building review written by Rob Bevan, The Architectural Review has produced this video which introduces the broader public to the tenants, allowing us to better understand the building’s use, intentions, and the design philosophy.

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The Linda Pace Foundation has unveiled plans for a new building designed by Adjaye Associates. Planned to open in San Antonio, Texas in 2018, "Ruby City" will house the Foundation's growing collection of contemporary art. The two-story structure, clad in "crimson-hued panels of precast concrete with glass aggregate," will be distinct with its "dramatic rooftop of sloping angles and skylights that rise to varying heights and echo cut-away spaces at the building’s base."

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Adjaye Associates has announced plans to transform a 17-floor post-modernist structure in Johannesburg’s central business district into a luxury mixed-use building that will be known as the “Hallmark House.” Scheduled for completion mid-2016, the project aims to “combine an African aesthetic with a contemporary vision” and form a new typology for urban living.

“The transformation of Hallmark House is an opportunity to apply fresh thinking to urban community and to address changing lifestyles with a more fluid approach to the way we inhabit cities,” says David Adjaye.

Adjaye Associates' latest development has opened in the historic neighborhood of Harlem, New York: a complex that aims to combat poverty and revitalize the community by bringing together affordable housing (including housing for homeless New Yorkers), a Preschool, and a 17,000 square foot cultural institution - the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling. The “school in a museum” is designed to engage students and foster a new generation of Sugar Hill artists and innovators.

“The Sugar Hill Development is a new typology for affordable housing, with its mixed program of museum space, community facilities, offices and apartments,” David Adjaye noted at yesterday's opening press conference, “My hope is that the building—perched high on Coogan’s Bluff—will offer a symbol of civic pride and be a valued new resource for the neighborhood.”

The architect's description of the project, after the break.

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