By Akanimo Sampson
He is the Founder and Principal of NLÉ based in Lagos, the commercial heartbeat of Nigeria and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is Kunlé Adeyemi, an architect, designer and urbanist with recent work, Makoko Floating School.
Makoko Floating School is a prototype floating structure located on the lagoon heart of Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos. This project is part of an extensive research project – “African Water Cities”.
He won the Silver Lion prize for promising young architects at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition (2016) for his Makoko Floating School.
NLÉ develops a number of urban, research and architectural projects in Africa; including Chicoco Radio Media Center; the amphibious building in Port Harcourt, the capital city of Rivers State, winner of a LafargeHolcim Awards Acknowledgement prize in 2014.
Kunlé Adeyemi studied architecture at the University of Lagos where he began his early practice, before joining Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in 2002. At OMA, working closely with founder Rem Koolhaas for nearly a decade, he led the design, development and execution of numerous projects in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Among these projects were the award winning Samsung Museum of Art, the Seoul National University Museum, NM Rothschild Bank in London, Shenzhen Stock Exchange tower in China, Prada Transformer in South Korea, Qatar National Library, Qatar Foundation Headquarters and the 4th Mainland Bridge and master plan in Lagos.
He was responsible for critical stages in design and realisation of these projects. This involved leading OMA’s design team, coordinating a diverse global network of stakeholders and experts collaborators, including Arup for Engineering and Davis Langdon (AECOM) on cost matters.
He is the Baird Distinguished Visiting Critic of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and was Callison Distinguished Visiting Lecturer of the University of Washington (2011). His main area of academic interest is in developing cities of the global South.
He has pursued and developed this issue via a number of research papers and study opportunities. They include a post-professional degree from Princeton University, where with Peter Eisenman, he investigated rapid urbanization and the role of market economies in developing cities of the global South, focusing on Lagos.
Kunlé Adeyemi was a member of the LafargeHolcim Awards jury for Middle East Africa in 2017. LafargeHolcim Foundation promotes and illustrates the strength of diverse approaches to sustainable construction through its Awards competition (left) and Forums (right).
It is the mission of the Foundation to select and support initiatives that combine sustainable construction solutions with architectural excellence and enhanced quality of life beyond technical solutions.
Through the non-commercial promotion and development of sustainable construction at national, regional, and global levels, the LafargeHolcim Foundation encourages sustainable responses to the technological, environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural issues affecting building and construction.
