Burkinese architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, Principal and Founder of Kéré Architecture, has delivered a lecture at this year's World Architecture Festival, explaining the multiple ways of local architecture, specifically focusing on Africa's architecture, with material innovations and different building techniques.

In a 40-min lecture, Francis Kéré explained how he applies his specific techniques, working methodology and creates different ways of construction in many local sites across Africa, while also engaging with local community in detail to build his buildings.

Image © WAC 

Socially-minded architect Diébédo Francis Kéré was born in 1965 in Gando, Burkina Faso and studied at the Technical University of Berlin. Parallel to his studies, he established the Kéré Foundation (formerly Schulbausteine für Gando e.V.), and in 2005 he founded Kéré Architecture.

This year, Francis Kéré designed the 2017 Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Kensington Gardens, Kéré is the seventeenth but the first African architect being selected to design the annual Serpentine gallery pavilion.

Kéré’s work has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Architecture Museum in Munich and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (both in 2016) and his work has been selected for group exhibitions such as: Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010) and Sensing Spaces, at the Royal Academy, London (2014). 

Jeremy Melvin is presenting Francis Kéré at the WAF Festival Stage. Image © WAC 

"I'm privileged because I was educated to access and transform that knowledge into the community," said Francis Kéré during his lecture. The architect showed how he invents new materials and construction techniques over his design process in architecture. 

He concludes the first part of his lecture with "Don't speak... Make!" (see below).

His architectural practice has been recognized nationally and internationally with awards including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first building, a primary school in Gando, Burkina Faso. Kéré has undertaken projects in varied countries including Burkina Faso, Mali, Germany and Switzerland. He has held professorships at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Swiss Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio). In 2017 he accepted the professorship for "Architectural Design and Participation" at TU München (Germany).

World Architecture Community is media partner for this year's World Architecture Festival. Read on for more information about the seminar programme and awards shortlist...

Top image © Iwan Baan