DAVID ADJAYE

“Architecture is one of the most labour-intensive, most abusive sort

of processes on the planet. And it also happens to be one of the most
fundamental things we make as human beings.”
 Born on the 22 th of September 1966 in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania from Ghanaian parents.

Because of his father carreer (his father was a diplomat) David Adjaye lived in several countries
in Africa and Middle East during his childhood before his family to settle in London
An Interest in Arts led him to earn a B.Arch. from London South Bank University (1990) and a
M.Arch. from the Royal College of Art (1993)
During his studying period he worked as an intern in the studio of David Chipperfield and
Eduardo Souto De Moura

He created Adjaye and Associates In 2000

will be Knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his services to architecture at an
investiture in 2017.

he has documented his observations of fifty-three African cities made between 1999 and 2010,
when he returned to engage anew with the African continent with the sensibilities of an architect.
“We live in a world where we should be thinking about changing certain practices, and giving up certain
lifestyles”

“The point is not to be literal, but to be experiential. I’m not speaking to the writers of history any
more, but to the zeitgeist.”

“How do I live in this earth here,”

“How does it land in this earth here”

 Project Name : Sugar Hill Housing
Year : 2014
Type : residences/ preschool/ museum
Location : Haarlem , New York, United States

Adjaye's strong social conscience has led him to projects in areas that are
often home to immigrant communities.

This affordable housing building for Sugar Hill. was thought in order
to strengthen the community – it comprises a Museum, a preschool and
residences.

A mixed program on the base level that Improve the poverty-stricken

neighborhood by providing quality housing for 124 families.
In addition to apartments a new educational, cultural and arts space
also have been incorporated into the scheme.
Project Name : Sugar Hill Housing
Year : 2014
Type : residences/ preschool/ museum
Location : Haarlem , New York, United
States

the 13-storey structure features a

façade of precast panels embossed with
images of roses, in reference to the
surrounding "heritage rose" district. 
These are designed to sparkle as the sun
catches them.
 The volumes slide at the ninth floor to create
a three-metre wide terrace on one side and a
cantilever on the other.

"new typology for affordable housing"

A landscaped plaza will form the entrance, while

additional terraces will be available to residents on the
second and third floors, as well as on the roof.
Faith Rinngold Children Museum /
Preschool

The Sugar Hill Museum occupies

the lower levels of the 13-storey block,
which is characterised
by an embossed sawtooth facade.
Resting at the bottom of Adjaye’s
stacked and shifted volumes, the 18,000
sqf Faith Ringgold Children’s Museum
of Art and Storytelling will hold a
permanent exhibition of Ringgold’s quilt
art in addition to temporary exhibitions
 Project Name : Stephen Lawrence
Centre
Year : January 2004—2007
Type : Memorial / Inspiration Center
Location : Brookmill Road , London,
United Kingdom

Adjaye designed the Stephen

Lawrence Centre in the memory of a black
teenager that had aspired to become an
architect, but who was tragically murdered
in a racially motivated attack back in 1993,
both as a memorial and a place of
inspiration.
 Project Name : Stephen Lawrence Centre
Year : January 2004—2007 The centre comprises
Type : Memorial / Inspiration Center meeting rooms,
Location : Brookmill Road , London,
United Kingdom classrooms, IT labs,
offices and exhibition
space

As a response to the context, the centre

has a different identity in each direction: two
pavilions if seen from the street; a single,
informal composition, seen from the north; a
stepped façade, from the river; and a single,
monumental profile, seen from the formal
gardens to the south.
Project Name : Stephen Lawrence Centre
Year : January 2004—2007
Type : Memorial / Inspiration Center
Location : Brookmill Road , London,
United Kingdom

2 volumes linked by a
Bridge
The main building
includes general teaching
spaces and computer
suites, spaces for group
and one-to-one
discussions, and a starter
office for new enterprises.
The smaller building
includes art and sound
studios and an editing
suite
Project Name : MOLE HOUSE
Year : January 2012
Type : Artist Residence Location :
Mortimer Road in east London, United
Kingdom

In homage to the Mole Man's legacy, Adjaye

has built multiple entrances and exits to
House.

For 40 years, Mole House's previous owner, retired

civil engineer William Lyttle, dug a warren of
burrows under his 20-room home on Mortimer
Road in east London.
The studio also excavated it
The owner was dubbed the Mole Man by the press below street level and gave it a
when the secret network of tunnels and caves were
discovered. He was later evicted and the tunnels
basement extension – with
were blocked up with concrete. planning permission this time.
Project Name : MOLE HOUSE
Year : January 2012
Type : Artist Residence Location :
Mortimer Road in east London, United
Kingdom

It comprises
the main house
Front
The three-storey house sits on a
garden
triangular plot, with two doors
the studio
accessible from the road and driveway
sunken back
leading to the main house or the
garden.
studio on the lower ground floor.
Project Name : The Dirty House
Year : 2002
Type : Art studio/ Residence Location :
London, United Kingdom

These houses are innovative especially in

materials and colour, and for The Idea Store
building typology which is both a library and
education centre.
.

Dirty House is a converted warehouse in

Shoreditch with black-painted walls and a building's sealed-up windows were
brightly illuminated roof. replaced with mirrored glass to ensure
privacy for its occupants.
Project Name : The Sunken House
Year : 2007
Type : Art studio/ Residence Location :
London, United Kingdom
A three storey house in
conservation area of De Beauvoir
town in Hackney.
The loadbearing structure of
the house consists of large
section engineered timber
panels which have been
manufactured off-site therby
limiting the on-site
construction programme to
approximately one week.
Project Name : The Sunken House
Year : 2007
Type : Art studio/ Residence Location :
London, United Kingdom

The site has been excavated to basement

level creating a sunken patio on which the
house a partly prefabricated solid timber
structure is placed.
Project Name : Ruby City Art Center Pace saw a red building in her sleep and made a sketch of it, which she
Year : 2015 then presented to Adjaye.
Type : Art Center
Location : San Antonio, Texas, United glazing that runs along the lower level. A red cast-in-place concrete
States wall with a rock salt finish encloses the outdoor space.

Two gallery spaces punctured by skylights in the building's jagged

roofline.

Ruby City was first imagined by

philanthropist, artist and art collector the
late Linda Pace, who passed away on 2 July
2007.
Project Name : Ruby City Art Center "Linda had a clear vision for how
Year : 2015 the institution should be an
Type : Art Center inspirational space for the
Location : San Antonio, Texas, United community and interact with its
States surroundings, drawing visitors
into the jewel-like structure while
connecting to the San Antonio
landscape,"

The building will be home to the

Linda Pace Foundation permanent collecti
on.
Project Name : Green belt underwear for
Year : 2015
Type : Underwear

PACT, an online underwear

brand that blends design and
sustainability with support for
powerful social and environmental
causes, today announced that it has
partnered with the Green Belt
Movement of Kenya and architect
David Adjaye to create the newest
print in its line of premium organic
cotton underwear for men and
women.
The brand have partnered with Kenyan organisation Green Belt Movement to
plant 20 trees for each pair sold.
PACT engaged to donate all proceeds from Earth Week sales of new Green
Belt print to achieve tree-planting goal
Project Name : Rather than being in separate buildings, the main elements of the brief
Moscow School of Management are therefore housed in clearly identifiable volumes that nevertheless form
Year : 2010 part of a single development.
Type : University
Location : Skolkovo, Russia

Situated in a wooded valley, the site has

the idyllic qualities associated with those of
a traditional campus but the severe demands
of a six-month winter were a barrier to
pursuing an arrangement of this kind.
Project Name : The four blocks above
Moscow School of Management individually house
Year : 2010 administration, a
Type : University wellbeing centre, a
Location : Skolkovo, Russia hotel and student
accommodation.

The main elements of the building are assembled as a

single entity in which a range of facilities are
internally connected and made accessible without
going outside.

Classrooms and lecture halls circle a restaurant at the

centre of the 150 metre-wide school-on-legs and a car
park can be found below
Project Name : Ghana’s National Cathedral,
Year : 2018
Type : Cathedral
Location : Accra, Ghana

Serving as a place of worship and a community

hub, inside will contain a series of chapels, a
baptistery, a 5,000-seat auditorium, a music
school, art gallery, and Africa's first bible
museum.
The practice has also selected several local
artists to collaboratively produce furnishings and
religious adornments for the cathedral's interiors.
Project Name : Public , With a hybrid form that merges the Aboriginal origins with the legacy of early
Year : 2018 settlers and the industrial materiality and language of the nearby harbor, the program
Type : Public space Comprises an open plan café, gallery space and garden terrace,scattered in a flexible,
Location Sydney Australia free-flow space “with activated connections to the plaza and adjacent developments,
where encounters with art and community are made easy”.

a new public square, plaza building and

public artwork near Circular Quay in
Sydney.
The project attempts to uncover the lost
history of the site, reconcile cultures and
define identities.
Project Name : Public , Daniel Boyd, inspired by
Year : 2018 Aboriginal dot painting,
Type : Public space will curate “a cosmic
Location Sydney Australia
journey of light that filters
and refracts through
multiple, randomly
scattered, circular, mirror-
lined canopy openings”.

these patterns continue onto

To connect this profound centre with the the paving through a series of
sites heritage and origins, Adjaye collaborated steel circles and cylindrical glass
with Daniel Boyd, a renowned contemporary skylights, in order to extend the
artist of Aboriginal dissent, on the projects key play of light down into the
feature – a 27x34m perforated canopy that
bicycle facility under the plaza.
shelters and unites the community building and
the plaza under a poetic layer of light and
darkness.
Project Name : The Webster Store
Year : 2020
Type : Commercial Gallery
Location: Los Angeles , California, United
States
The cantilevered concrete facade references and reimagines the
brutalist shell of the original existing building and is injected with a pink
dye—an ode to the luminosity of California, where the Pacific light
naturally amplifies saturated colors.

The Webster establishes a new public

space at the intersection of San Vincente
and Beverly Boulevards. Featuring a
digital art wall and a sculptural water
fountain, the new public space cultivates
an unexpected urban oasis.
Project Name : The Webster Store
Year : 2020
Type : Commercial Gallery Spaced cantilevers
Location: Los Angeles , California, United against the use of the
States pink live colors makes a
brilliant illumination of
the whole masterpiece
…

eight-story mall with a

structure that has been
designed as a
‘I wanted to see if I could just use one ‘sculptural and
colorway for the primary palette as a experiential
background to the multi-colored clothes and counterpoint’ to the
merchandise featured in the store. the space is beverly center’s retail
almost like an isamu noguchi playground, experience.
which uses platonic and architectural forms to
make a landscape.’
Project Name : Smithsonian National
Museum of African American History and
Culture.
Year : 2016
Type : mUSEUM
Location : WASHINGTON DC, United
States

Located on Constitution Avenue,

adjacent to the National Museum of American
History and the Washington Monument, the
museum houses exhibit galleries,
administrative spaces, theatre space and
collections storage space for the NMAAHC.
Project Name : Smithsonian National
Museum of African American History and The design comprises three stacked
Culture.
Year : 2016 volumes – each covered in bronze
Type : mUSEUM plates perforated with patterns that
Location : WASHINGTON DC, United reference the history of African
States American craftsmanship. It also
includes a triple-height gallery and
theatre set underground.

The
Smithsonian National Museum of African Am
erican History and Culture
 has been named Design of the Year for 2017,
after being described by judges as a "major
turning point" in architecture.
Project Name : Adelaide Contemporary
Museum
Year : Design Competition
Type : mUSEUM
Location : Not yet Built

The building is conceived as a mythical

primal house, set on the land of the Kaurna
people.
It negotiates the relationship between
Aboriginal Country, urban grid and the future-
facing city into a synthesised moment of
cultural enlightenment.
Project Name : Francis Gregory Library
Year : 2012
Type : Library
Location : Washington Dc, United States

It suggests a woodland folly – a building that is a pavilion within Fort

The winner of an Architecture
Competition
The brief called for the new buildings
to be flexible, accessible, welcoming and
inviting.
Davis Park.
Views of the park are framed from within, while the exterior of the
building both reflects and complements the dense composition of trees and the
striking natural environment.
Viewed from the street, the building appears to flicker with the changing
light, providing a lens through which to see into the park.
Project Name : Francis Gregory Library
Year : 2012
Type : Library
Location : Washington Dc, United States

The two-storey building provides

the design strategy is highly
space for three major library
sustainable, with the building taking
services: adults, teenagers and
advantage of the natural vegetation,
children, also a public meeting
maximizing the winter sun exposure and
room and conference rooms.
controlling the summer sun with a large
canopy over the pavilion.
Project Name :The Washington collection
Year :
Type : Chair
Location : Washington Dc, United States

"This project has been an

exhilarating and collaborative
experience – an unexpected
balancing act between the design
and engineering processes,"

The Washington Skeleton and The lattice design of the Skeleton

Washington Skin chairs balance on a chair is constructed from die-cast
cantilevered stand and are suitable for aluminium, while the Skin
outdoor use. version is made from injection-
moulded nylon.