YAA Projects designs architecture in dialogue and response to place, identity, climate, material and history.
About
Press
The ArchiAfrika Pavilion was designed by YAA Projects and situated in Giardini della Marinaressa, a public park, off the laguna in Venice. The project is rooted in our research on the African compound house as a communal housing typology, aiming to inform contextually driven approaches to housing on the African continent. Simultaneously, this research addresses how this typology might influence European housing design to meet the needs of its diasporic communities.
The five-by-five-metre pavilion offers space for gatherings, exhibitions and talks in various forms. Externally, the perimeter and four expressive corners act as seats and resting spaces. The bright and colourful tapestry of Ghanaian wax prints that form the roof filters sunlight dynamically into the interior. As people interact with the pavilion, their bodies become part of the architecture, like the totems, carvings and sculptures evident in West African architecture.
From the outset, we embraced the pavilion’s temporary nature, treating it as an opportunity to explore circularity and material reuse. Given the heritage condition of the site, the project required that the installation of the pavilion leave no traces on the site after its deconstruction and respect the ecology and planting within the park. We worked AKT II as structural engineers to design a foundation system that would not require digging, therefore avoiding damage to the site. The pavilion was designed using low-carbon, biodegradable, and reusable materials, and to be fully demountable. It was successfully deconstructed and used within other temporary pavilion projects, such as the summer school programme hosted by the German Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2023, two years after its initial completion.
Through a programme of exhibitions and talks curated by YAA Projects, the pavilion engaged with a wide variety of audiences, including architecture and design professionals, students and the wider public.
Drawings: © YAA Projects
Photography: © Luca Bosco
in collobration with 121 Collective & Bushra Mohamed
Solar, Design Museum