Ms. Oshinowo, what memories do you most associate with growing up in Lagos, Nigeria?
Growing up in Lagos, we didn’t have a lot of toys, so your imagination was your plaything. You could create anything from everything around you. One of my favorite memories is being at my grandmother’s house, which is in a very dense part of Lagos, all the children on the street would make kites from the small branches of the palm tree tied with a little bit of nylon. Everyone on the street would have these kites up, and I remember you would find loads of the electrical lines on streets covered in bits of old kites. Everybody was playing these kites, and it’s such a happy memory for me. I loved making something from absolutely nothing! Kids would make little cars from tin cans, things like that. You used what you had around you to play.
Do you think that all that time spent looking up at the skyline had some kind of intrinsic impact on your decision to become an architect?
(Laughs) Well, I was always a creative child. I did fine arts in school, painting, drawing… So I was always inclined in this direction. Around age 14 or 15, there is a subject in school called technical drawing, and it was very clear that I seem to have a good understanding and a grasp of it. So I think architecture and art was a natural progression from that. I was a very spatial child, so Lagos was a really fascinating place to grow up. Lagos is very busy, very chaotic. There are a lot of people. Its foundations are as originally a British colony; it was set up as a naval point to enforce the abolition of the slave trade, but it’s become a melting pot for many different ethnic groups in Nigeria. It’s the smallest size state in the country. It has only one percent of the whole surface area of Nigeria, but it has 10 percent of the country’s population. It’s also an economic hub, it’s a port city so it’s known for trade… It’s a really exciting city for someone interested in architecture.
“My practice has always been grounded in contextual design, responding to climate, culture, economy, and the realities of place.”
Lagos is a beautiful city, but there are of course many factors that impact its architecture: it has a tropical climate, and Nigeria has suffered a lot from austerity and socio-economic disparity.
Absolutely and as architects, we don’t have the luxury to design in a vacuum. At the end of the day, somebody always has to pay for it, and it cannot just be your ideas that you represent in the architecture. Architecture has to work in relation to society, to what the client wants, to the environment. In Nigeria we’re also thinking about tradition, the way we would have lived prior to any form of external influences like imperialism to colonialism. We’re thinking about technology. We can’t necessarily use the same materials as elsewhere in the world, for example, cement has become the staple form of construction globally — but what about local material? Beautiful laterite red soil, adobe bricks…. We’re constantly faced with these externalities that have informed the architecture of place. We also have a system which is highly inefficient, because we don’t have 24-hour power, we don’t have local manufacturing, so building materials and the cost of labor is quite expensive in Nigeria.
I can imagine there’s also a lot of pushback from the government in that sense, no?
It’s not uncommon to hear embassies say: Why is the cost of the building in Nigeria so much more expensive than that of Kenya or that of Ghana? It’s a highly inefficient system. But something that I mentioned earlier with the kites, you know, austerity breeds innovation. I want to design a really beautiful building that respects tradition, but is also very present in the contemporary setting. How am I able to do that when there is a limit to what I can do with the materials I have available? It really does push a way of seeing and thinking about architecture that you wouldn’t necessarily have to consider elsewhere.
What are some of the solutions you’ve found to these issues? I know that experimenting with building materials has been a key part of your practice, for example.
Well, when we started out as a practice, we were building with what everyone else uses here: sandcrete blocks. It’s easy to create from a mold, it’s easy to adjust if you make mistakes, so it’s a go-to standard material to use on projects, but it retains a lot of heat. So now we’ve started to experiment with rammed earth, and we currently have two projects that we’re working on with that. The big challenge that we face with rammed earth is that it looks great, but it does have some complexities that need to be considered: it can absorb a lot of moisture, which is a problem, because humidity can get locked in. It’s a lot more expensive to build with, it’s a knowledge base that people are not really familiar with. And until more people use it, we won’t be able to get the price down. But I’m hoping once it popularizes, it will be easier because yhe material is in its abundance on this continent. It makes so much sense to use it, it keeps buildings cool during the day, it’s a material of tradition, it’ what our great grandparents used to build their homes. It’s fire retardant, it’s sound insulating, it’s also great for deterring rodents and insects…
Another unique approach to material is your use of corrugated metal sheets in the flagship store you designed for Adidas.
That was a really interesting project for us, it was a competition win and the brief was to respond to the idea of the urban culture. The building itself was an existing 1970s building so we did an extension in steel, and we wanted something that would create a unifying effect on the outside. These corrugated metal sheets are used for so many houses in Nigeria, especially the lower end of the market. Everyone who’s from this place knows this material. It’s such a commonly used material, and just to use it in a completely different configuration was just very exciting. The effect you get from the undulation across the screen is contemporary and exciting but till pays homage to its humble beginnings.
The facade also acts as a cooling mechanism, right? It’s a singularly beautiful and practical sustainable feature.
My practice has always been grounded in contextual design, responding to climate, culture, economy, and the realities of place. In West Africa, this means prioritizing passive cooling over mechanical systems, using local materials and craftsmanship wherever possible, and designing buildings that can evolve with changing patterns of use rather than becoming obsolete. I see sustainability as designing with humility. It is about recognizing that architecture exists within a larger ecological, cultural, and economic system. Our responsibility is not simply to minimize harm, but to create buildings that are resilient, generous, and regenerative.
Is that why your participation as part of the jury of the Holcim Foundation is so important?
I found the experience of being part of the Holcim Foundation jury immensely rewarding. It was inspiring to see the breadth of ideas and the many ways designers are thinking about the challenges of modernity and those related to sustainability. Initiatives like the Holcim Foundation are important because they expand the conversation beyond technical compliance into a broader discussion about the future of the built environment. They create a platform where architects, engineers, researchers, and clients can exchange ideas, challenge established thinking, and showcase projects that demonstrate new ways of designing buildings and thinking about cities. What I particularly value is that the Foundation recognizes sustainability as a multidimensional issue. It is not only about reducing carbon emissions or improving operational performance; it also considers questions of social equity, resilience, circularity, material innovation, and long-term value.
Those are points that are essential to your own practice as well.
As an architect working in Africa, I believe we need to ask fundamental questions: What should we build? What should we preserve? What materials already exist? How can we design buildings that endure, adapt, and remain useful over time. I’ve always thought that it’s important to respond appropriately to location and context, but also that you respond with your soul. Like I said before, you can’t create architecture in a vacuum. It is always a fully embodied extension of culture.