Africa Architecture Awards shortlist announced

“The Africa Architecture Awards has been established to highlight the continent’s innovative and collaborative style of solving problems – architectural or otherwise. Saint-Gobain has engaged with some of the best minds in the field to establish this programme, so that the awards are relevant, contextual and progressive. We are more than thrilled to see the response that the competition has received to date,” said Evan Lockhart-Barker, MD of the Saint-Gobain Retail Business Development Initiative.

Out of the box partnerships (Source: Africa Architecture Awards)

Those projects that made the shortlist now stand in line to win a trophy in the Built, Speculative, Emerging Voices or Critical Dialogue categories, with the overall Grand Prix award at $10,000. There were 139 entries in the Built category, 91 entries in the Speculative category, 44 entries in the Emerging Voices category and 34 entries in the Critical Dialogue category.

The shortlist was chosen by a master jury comprising a pan-African panel of architects and industry experts, including: Anna Abengowe (Nigeria), Guillaume Koffi (Côte d’Ivoire), Professor Edgar Pieterse (South Africa), Patti Anahory (Cape Verde), Professor Mark Olweny (Uganda), Tanzeem Razak (South Africa), and Phill Mashabane (South Africa).

The 20 shortlisted projects are as follows:

Built

• One Airport Square, Ghana - MCA Architects
• Thread: Artists’ Residency and Cultural Centre, Senegal - Toshiko Mori Architect
• Dakar Conference Centre, Senegal - Tabanlioglu Architects
• Umkhumbane Museum, South Africa - Choromanski Architects
• Out of the Box Partnerships, Ethiopia - Parallel Solutions

Dakar Conference Centre (Source: Africa Architecture Awards)

Speculative

• Ecree, Ecowski Centre for Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency, Cape Verde - Fernando Mauricio Dos Santos
• New Eye Sight Hospital, Republic of Congo - Boogertman + Partners
• Kigali Genocide Memorial, Rwanda - Mass Design Group
• The Territory Inbetween, South Africa - Aissata Balde
• Beyond Entropy, Angola - Paula Nascimento

Kigali Genocide Memorial (Source: Africa Architecture Awards)

Emerging Voices

• The Embassy of Mantanhas – Eclectic Atlases, Cape Verde - Stephanie Ryder, Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg
• Architecture of Crisis: Windhoek Community Boreholes - Elao Martin, Namibia University of Science and Technology
• Re-think Makoko, Lagos - Mohamed Waheed Fareed Abdelfatah, Helwan University, Egypt
• The Monolith of Kasolo, Democratic Republic of the Congo - Federico Fauli, Architectural Association, School of Architecture, London
• The Exchange Consulate: Trading Passports for Hyper-Performative Economic Enclaves, South Africa - Ogundare Olawale Israel

Architecture of Crisis - Windhoek Communal Borehole Wells (Source: Africa Architecture Awards)

Critical Dialogue

• Design Indaba, South Africa - Interactive Africa
• APSAIDAL - Ebano Wey Ekame Ikuga, Spain
• Forum de Arquitectura - Ceica, Angola
• The Journey of Design and Critical Dialogue. Securing the Presence of Urban Livelihoods - Richard Dobson, South Africa
• Revolution Room - Visual Arts Network, South Africa & Waza Arts Centre, Democratic Republic of Congo

The trophy winners in each of the four entry categories and the overall grand prize will be announced at a gala awards ceremony to be held at the newly opened Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town.

Following the awards ceremony, a public colloquium titled 'Celebrating Architecture in Africa' will be held to discuss the winning projects and explain why they were chosen. This event will take place on 29 September 2017 at the Institute for Creative Arts at UCT Hiddingh Campus in Cape Town from 9am. Participants include members of the steering panel and master jury for the Africa Architecture Awards.

Go to www.AfricaArchitectureAwards.com for more information.