The book had a first launch event at the Venice Biennale on Monday 4 September.
Biennale curator Lesley Lokko introduced a panel discussion between the book’s editors, Kuukuwa Manful, Emmanuel Ofori-Sarpong and Julia Gallagher, and two of its authors, Olufèmi Hinson Yovo and Fiona Nyadero.
The book, which emerged from a workshop in Accra last year, contains ten essays written by young African architects, urban planners and activists, proposing novel solutions to urban challenges across the continent.
The editors and authors discussed the causes and shape of urban challenges across the continent. Olufèmi and Fiona spoke about their particular interests in how to involve users - residents of new homes and market traders respectively - in planning big planning projects. Addressing audience questions, the panel also tackled African architectural identities, colonial legacies, architectural training and how architecture can contribute to decolonisation.
You can download the book for free here.
Book details
Building African Futures: 10 Manifestos for Transformative Architecture and Urbanism
How do young African professionals imagine a future for the continent’s cities?
Building African Futures presents ten essays by young architects, urban planners and activists that offer innovative solutions to big challenges,
including housing shortages, informality, legal roadblocks and misunderstandings between architects, policy-makers and local people. Their ideas are grounded yet transformative. They reflect the authors’ direct experiences across a range of African cities, but the issues they speak to resonate across the continent.
This collection is a rich resource for urban activists, built environment professionals, local governments and a general audience with an interest in African urbanism.