Lesley Lokko is on a mission to transform architecture, fostering a new generation of ‘more dynamic thinkers’

When Lesley Lokko was a young student in 1990s London, architecture was a place of openness and experimentation. And yet, she felt the discipline was incapable of thinking beyond European concepts of space. “We were being taught… in a very predominantly Eurocentric way, about the difference between inside and outside, between privacy and publicity, or even simple things like a family structure,” said the renowned Scottish-Ghanian architect, now in her 60s. She noted the difference between her experience growing up around extended family and the small “two-up, two-down” homes common among nuclear families in the UK. Even her way of thinking about building materials was at odds with the curriculum: in the tropics, concrete rots and metal rusts. “The way you think about weather and materials and circulation and ventilation is very different,” Lokko told CNN over a video call from Ghana’s capital Accra. Fast forward three decades and Lokko is now the educator leading the classroom. Her initiative, the African Futures Institute (AFI), is an effort to radically re-imagine what a design education should look like for younger generations. The institute, based in Accra, was initially going to be an independent post-graduate school of architecture. But Lokko soon realized the logistics and resources needed to start an entirely new school might be out of reach. “Also, I’m not sure that the world needs another architecture school… what it needs are more ambitious, more creative, more dynamic thinkers and makers,” she said. Instead, the AFI will host the Nomadic African Studio, a series of annual studio sessions offering new ways to think about architecture and design as they relate to pressing global issues, like climate change and migration. Over half of the first group of participants are from Africa, with another 25% from the diaspora. Part of the project aims to turn narratives about Africa on their heads. Echoing post-colonial thinkers like Frantz Fanon, the West Indian psychiatrist and philosopher, Lokko laments how the continent has long been “positioned as the recipient of knowledge.” “We’re the producer of raw materials, but we are the recipients of finished products — whether that’s intellectual products or cars,” she said, expressing her desire for the project to demonstrate that Africa is also “the generator of ideas… and knowledge.” The ‘first’ of many Last year, Lokko became the first African woman to be awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Royal Gold Medal in its 176-year-history. The year before, she became the first Black architect to curate the Venice Biennale, with her program widely celebrated as one of the most politically-engaged, environmentally aware and inclusive in the event’s history. (Her attempts to stretch the boundaries and reach of the discipline were not without criticism, however: architect Patrik Schumacher, principal of the late Zaha Hadid’s firm, lamented that the event from his perspective did “not show any architecture.”) Lokko’s achievements signal a breakthrough for diversity in the discipline (in the UK, nearly 80% of registered architects are White). But how does Lokko feel about being the “first” to receive these prestigious accolades and appointments? “The constant refrain, the first Black, the first woman, the first African, they’ve always seemed to me to be other people’s descriptions. It’s not how I would describe myself,” she said. “The ‘first’ only really makes sense when you’re not living here,” she added, referring to her home in Ghana. “When I left Accra, I was half-Scottish, half-Ghanaian,” she said of leaving the country at 17 for boarding school in England. “When I arrived in London the next morning, I was Black.” But she acknowledges the monumental achievements are a “massive leverage” enabling her to pursue projects like AFI. “Whatever the descriptions are, they give you access to supporters, donors, funders, philanthropists, in a way that you probably wouldn’t have without it. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword,” Lokko added. Designing for the future The future — and preparing younger generations for it — are at the forefront of Lokko’s practice today. When she curated the Biennale, the average age of participants was 43 (significantly younger than previous editions). Half the practitioners on the program hailed from Africa or the African diaspora. The Biennale also centered the continent through its central exhibition theme: Africa as the Laboratory of the Future. “It was an attempt to say that so many of the conditions that the rest of the world are now beginning to face, Africa has been facing those for 1,000 years and, in some ways, we’re ahead of the present,” said Lokko, who used the word “laboratory” to convey the continent as a workshop “where people can come together to imagine what the future can look like.” The Nomadic African Studio appears to take a leaf from the same book. The first of its annual month-long programs will launch in Fez, Morocco this July. Around 30 participants under the age of 35 were either chosen from an open call or invited by a nomination committee to join the free program. (Lokko admitted there was pushback about the age limit but she wanted to use the inaugural studio to address Africa as “a continent of young people.”) Working in small groups, participants will be given a topic —  like city-making or cultural identity — to interpret and produce a model, design, film, or performance around. The focus, for Lokko, is not on the outcome. She is critical of architectural education for its tendency to fixate on finished products. The point here is not about producing speedy outputs, it’s about “teaching people how to think.” “You can have a huge impact on the way someone thinks about really important, difficult topics,” said Lokko, who hopes that after five iterations, hundreds of people will have benefitted from its rigorous, exploratory environment. “Maybe, eventually, a new form of school will emerge,” she said. Drawing inspiration Lokko herself had no plans of becoming an architect. She studied Hebrew and Arabic for a term at the University of Oxford before studying sociology in the US. She considered becoming a lawyer, and was working as an office manager when an offhand comment set her on the path to becoming an architect. While helping a colleague sketch countertops for his side businesses (a restaurant and dry cleaners), he became struck by her drawings. He told her: “’You’re mad. Why do you want to be a sociologist or a lawyer? You should be an architect,’” Lokko recalled. “It was literally the first time it had ever occurred to me.” At 29, she found herself back in the UK and enrolled in an undergraduate degree program at University College London’s famed Bartlett School of Architecture. Lokko felt “fortunate” to study there at a time of what she called great experimentation and academic open-mindedness —  though the field remained male-dominated and lacking in diversity. “I think there were maybe six or seven women in the class… there was only one other person of color,” she recalled. Beyond the demographics, aspects of the discipline felt restrictive and didn’t reflect the experiences Lokko had with built spaces growing up in Ghana. “The rules seemed to be that you conformed to architecture, rather than architecture conforming to what you might have known,” she explained, referencing ways of learning about space that didn’t account for the world outside of Europe. “I was very conscious all the time of having to forget all that in order to excel at what I was being taught,” said Lokko, adding that those first few years pursuing her degree were a matter of “suppressing my instincts and experiences.” Rethinking education In the early 2000s, Lokko decided the architecture field wasn’t for her and left a teaching job in the US to become a writer. For 15 years, she worked full time writing novels that explored themes of racial and cultural identity through romance and historical fiction. It was an unorthodox move that ended up broadening her perspective as an architect. “(Fiction) allowed me to develop certain ideas around identity, around race, around belonging, around history that I think I would have really struggled to articulate in architecture,” she explained. After so much time away from the discipline, she was called back when she was asked to be an external examiner for the University of Johannesburg’s graduate program. It was at a time when South Africa was undergoing profound change with the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall movements, when university students demanded the removal of 19th century colonist Cecil Rhodes’ statue at the University of Cape Town and refused tuition hikes — eventually securing a freeze on their fees. The student activist movement also called for the “decolonization” and “transformation” of higher education institutions across the country, where academia was a predominantly White space. (In 2012, White academics made up 53% of full-time permanent academic staff despite White people making up 8% of South Africa’s population.) Lokko stayed on, becoming an associate professor in the university’s department of architecture, which she remembers as having low enrollment and little diversity. The opportune timing meant the atmosphere was ripe for change, leading her to found a new graduate school of architecture at the university in 2014. “Suddenly, the flood gates opened, and Black students started pouring into the school,” she said, the experience allowing her to develop a way of teaching that was relevant to Africans and post-colonial identities. But what made all these Black students enroll in a discipline that had been dominated by White students for so long? “At a really basic level — having role models, having professors of color,” said Lokko. “Female students would say to me: ‘We’d never encountered somebody like you before.’” The enrollment numbers were also bolstered by her efforts to center the curriculum around student interests and the cultural context they were approaching architecture from. It was all part of a broader ethos Lokko uses to approach education, the job of which is, she said, to “dream about possibilities for a future that’s not yet here.”