Design 54
Cape Verde’s newest cultural and creative platform is a floating music hub created by Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi and his firm NLÉ, in partnership with ADS Group– Africa Development Solutions. The Floating Music Hub, as it is officially named (and also known as the Mansa Floating Hub), is situated on the island of São Vicente within the beautiful port city of Mindelo. Regarded as the cultural capital of Cape Verde, Mindelo is known for its music scene, nightlife, and for its Brazil-inspired Carnival celebrations.
The Floating Music Hub consists of three triangular vessels and was built using Adeyemi’s Makoko Floating System, which relies on local materials and traditional building techniques from the informal Makoko community in Lagos. Using a simple prefabricated floating building system, designs within the floating system can be adopted for a variety of purposes, including cultural venues, schools, healthcare facilities, and even housing. The prefabricated floating A-frame structures are built from local wood or other sustainable timbers and have already been deployed in five countries across three continents including Nigeria, Italy, China, and Belgium.
The Floating Music Hub consists of three triangular vessels and was built using Adeyemi’s Makoko Floating System, which relies on local materials and traditional building techniques from the informal Makoko community in Lagos. Using a simple prefabricated floating building system, designs within the floating system can be adopted for a variety of purposes, including cultural venues, schools, healthcare facilities, and even housing. The prefabricated floating A-frame structures are built from local wood or other sustainable timbers and have already been deployed in five countries across three continents including Nigeria, Italy, China, and Belgium.
Adeyemi— who was born in Kaduna, Nigeria and studied architecture at the University of Lagos and at the Princeton University School of Architecture— is well-known for his sustainable projects. His floating systems are an extension of his African Water Cities project, a research and documentation project that examines the impacts of rapid urbanization and climate change in African coastal cities while adapting these locations to be better equipped for their implications. “Rather than building dams and reclaiming land to build around water, Water Cities is about not fighting with the water but learning to live with it,” Adeyemi said in an interview with The New York Times. “We can’t immediately stop rising sea levels, but we can design our cities to adapt to changes in water conditions.”
Image courtesy of NLÉ.
The largest vessel within the Floating Music Hub trio houses a multipurpose live performance hall that accommodates up to 100 people, while the second largest offers a recording studio and the smallest vessel functions as a food and drink bar. The hub, which was completed earlier this year and officially opened on August 14th, promotes creative industries like music, dance, art, and fashion across Africa and the diaspora.
Images courtesy of NLÉ.
The first structure to be completed as part of the Makoko Floating System was the Makoko Floating School in 2012 in Lagos, Nigeria. The project earned Adeyemi the 2013 AR+D award for emerging architecture and was shortlisted for the London Design Museum's 2014 Design of the Year award, as well as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016. Sadly, the project only served as an actual school for four months in its three-year existence. In 2016, it collapsed as a result of maintenance neglect and heavy storms that ultimately downed the structure. A 24-page report from NLÉ detailing the reasons behind the floating school’s collapse also discussed a regeneration and rebuild plan, though no timeline has been publicly revealed for the revitalization.
Night views, courtesy of NLÉ.
In 2016, NLÉ debuted an improved version of its original Makoko Floating School in Venice, Italy. The WATERFRONT Atlas, as it was called, was exhibited at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia and won the Silver Lion prize. It was recognized as a “powerful demonstration, be it in Lagos in Venice, that architecture, at once iconic and pragmatic, can amplify the importance of education.” Following that, the Minne Floating School debuted in 2018 in Belgium for the Bruges Triennale 2018 Liquid City exhibition, where it functioned as a temporary exhibition space, workshop and design school. Another temporary floating school, called the MFS IIIx3 Minjiang Floating System, also appeared in 2018 in Chengdu, China as part of Cosmopolis #1.5: ‘Enlarged Intelligence’ exhibition, in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and Mao Jihong Arts Foundation.
Adeyemi and NLÉ’s work is not limited to floating systems. The architect and his firm are behind designs like many components of Tanzania’s sustainable Black Rhino Academy (including the sports complex, dormitories, and furniture), the Seoul National University Museum, the Qatar Foundation Headquarters, and the Nike Art Pavilion in Nigeria.
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Architecture, Art, and Design of Africa and the African Diaspora. We seek out African creatives who instigate positive change through design and art.
