Africa: Rethinking Architecture and Design

KADK presents 25 projects which wrestle with both the opportunities and the challenges confronting the rapidly developing African continent.

Exhibition opening the 8th of March at 16.00. 

The African continent is booming financially and in terms of population. This generates new demands for better standards of living and exerts pressure on the environment and resources. The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (KADK) presents architecture and design for a developing continent. 

Africa is currently being proclaimed by the business community as the continent of opportunity – with record-setting financial growth, vast natural resources, fertile farmland and an rivalled population boom.  

These trends generate new demands for better standards of living – health, education and well-being – but also exert pressure on the environment, resources and culture. KADK presents 25 projects which wrestle with both the opportunities and the challenges confronting a rapidly developing continent. 

Playful water filtration and mosquito-resistant doors

The exhibition features a number of projects by students who have just returned home from field trips to Tanzania and Mozambique. While there, they worked on alternative sources of energy, innovative water purification plants, sustainable, flexible school furniture and portable sanitation solutions.

At the other end of the scale, the exhibition presents some more complex research projects. These include prototypes for a door, the construction of which prevents mosquitoes from getting into houses, making it a cheaper and more sustainable alternative to anti malaria medicine and mosquito nets.

The exhibition will be accompanied by four open seminars, which will focus on the challenges and opportunities resulting from Africa’s economic and population booms.

Opening of the exhibition
The exhibition will open on 8 March at 4.00 pm.

Opening speech by Jakob Brandtberg Knudsen, Head of the School of Architecture.

Speeches by Remígio van Eys Chilaule, an architect from Mozambique and Maria Mackinney-Valentin, an associate professor in the School of Design.

Everybody is welcome!

’Africa: Rethinking Architecture and Design’ is kindly supported by the foundation 'A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal' and the ‘Dreyer Foundation’