Lesley Lokko's African Futures Institute Finds Permanent Home

A former tile warehouse in Accra, Ghana, has become the permanent headquarters of the African Futures Institute, the independent architecture school founded by Ghanaian-Scottish architect Lesley Lokko.

The renovated building sits in the neighbourhood of Osu. Lokko designed the project with designer Fred Swart and architects Patrick Gentilezza, Patti Anahory and Laurence Lord. It marks the first time the institute has had a permanent home since its establishment in 2021; until now it has operated through partnerships and temporary spaces.

"The refurbishment gives an existing commercial building in Osu a new civic life as a permanent centre for education, culture and public programming," the African Futures Institute told Dezeen.

The building contains research and education spaces for the school alongside cultural spaces open to the public. "Through lectures, exhibitions, workshops, screenings and gatherings, it creates a place where African Futures Institute's work can connect directly with the everyday life and rhythms of Accra," the institute said.

"We hope people experience it as a framework for cultural activity rather than a conventional institutional building. Above all, it is intended to encourage learning, encounter and the exchange of ideas."

Local oral history places the warehouse's construction in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The design team preserved and restored the original building envelope, added skylights to the roof and designed new wall openings to rationalise the facades.

Inside, the spaces are organised around the Urban Room, a multi-purpose flexible venue that can serve as a lecture hall, studio, cinema, workshop and exhibition hall. Rammed earth forms the flooring and a wall that extends the length of the building, finished with linseed oil. Locally sourced clay bricks, quarry dust, hardwood, metalwork and precast concrete complete a material palette chosen to complement the industrial character of the former warehouse.

The building will also house the Nomadic African Studio, the educational programme Lokko and the institute launched last year.

Lokko became the first African woman to win the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2024, and Time magazine named her among its 100 most influential people in the same year. Photography of the headquarters is by Alix McIntosh.

With its first fixed address, the institute can now root its teaching, exhibitions and public programming in one place — and test whether an architecture school built on movement can thrive by staying put.