By Khalifa Hemed
Published July 28, 2017

Umkhumbane Museum, South Africa by Choromanski Architects has been shrtlisted.The organisers of a pan-African initiative that seeks to identify and honour the shapers of the built environment in Africa have announced the projects they have shortlisted for the inaugural Africa Architecture Awards (AAA).

Out of more than 500 projects from 32 African countries that registered interest, 20 have been shortlisted with 307 others that completed the registration process being published on the AfricaArchitectureAwards.com website ‘as a repository of thought-provoking projects spanning the African continent’ that the Saint-Gobain Retail Business Development Initiative, who organise AAA describe as ‘a yardstick to gauge the depth and breadth of contemporary African architectural practice’.

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“The Africa Architecture Awards,” explains Evan Lockhart-Barker, the Managing Director of the Saint-Gobain Retail Business Development Initiative, “have 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.”

Dakar Conference Centre, Senegal by Tabanlioglu Architects has been shortlited in the Built category of the Africa Architecture Awards.The 20 shortlisted projects stand in line for a trophy in either the Built, Speculative, Emerging Voices or Critical Dialogue category, with the overall winner walking away with a USD$10000 Grand Prize.

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There entries received comprised were 139 were in the Built, 91 in the Speculative, 44 in the Emerging Voices and 34 in the Critical Dialogue categories, in that otder.

Re-think Makoko, Lagos - by Mohamed Waheed Fareed Abdelfatah, Helwan University, Egypt has been nominated in the Emerging Voices category.The jury that selected and shortlisted entries drew members from among architects and industry experts across Africa and included Professor Mark Olweny (Uganda), Patti Anahory (Cape Verde), Guillaume Koffi (Ivory Coast), Anna Abengowe (Nigeria), and Professor Edgar Pieterse, Tanzeem Razak and Phill Mashabane all from South Africa.

The 20 shortlisted projects, per category, are:

Built

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

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Speculative

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

Kigali Genocide Memorial, Rwanda - by Mass Design Group has been shortlisted in the Speculative category.Emerging Voices

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

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The trophy winners in each of the four entry categories, and the overall grand prize, will be announced at a gala awards ceremony Cape Town, South Africa on on September 28, 2017. Critical Dialogue

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

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, South Africa on on September 28, 2017.

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Out of the Box Partnerships, Ethiopia by Parallel Solutions, too, is in the race for Africa Architecture Awards' Built category.The organisers of the awards say they have also organised a public colloquium with members of the Steering Panel and Master Jury for the AAA to discuss the winning projects and explain why they were chosen after the awards ceremony. Titled Celebrating Architecture in Africa, the free admission event will take place on September 29, 2017 at the Institute for Creative Arts of the University of Cape Town’s Hiddingh Campus in Cape Town from 09:00 AM.