africa center

The Africa Centre is the museum component of the competition winning entry for the urban plan for the Southbank. The project is currently is design.
The Africa Centre is a series of nine buildings {plus numerous spaces for temporary occupation} dedicated to African art ranging from the tradition to the contemporary, from sculpture to the spoken word. The grid of buildings reflects a networked approach of multiplicity {as opposed to a centralized hierarchy typical of large museums}. The Centre buildings are always defined by sculptural double walls made of rammed earth. These walls will act as both instigators for the Africa Centre buildings as well as armature for a wide range of performances, display configurations, and temporary interventions. By distributing the Centre over a series of these wall nodes, a complex integration of buildings emerges which allows for the Africa Centre to grow using an established logic. A decentralized Africa Centre also creates spaces dominated by the sensual rather than the visual and the experiential versus the overtly pragmatic.
collaboration with normaldesign