Africa Alliance

Africa Alliance is a hub of urban scholars, practitioners, and educators whose work relates to the African continent as both a geographical and an epistemic location. We study buildings, cities, and landscapes on the continent and the many ways in which urbanization processes in Africa relate to other territories. We see Africa as a vantage point to rethink and respond to today’s unprecedented challenges of urbanization: social, economic, and environmental.

Partners

Topics of Focus

Archival Justice
How to uncover and preserve primary material on African architecture, and make it available to scholars and local communities.

Unformalization
Moving beyond the dominant formal/informal dichotomy through which the built environment is typically studied.

Land Imaginaries
How to rethink architecture in Africa based on land, its economies, and ecologies.

Oblique Histories
How Africa’s exchanges beyond Western Europe and North America are resources of conceptual and design innovations.

The Sociopolitics of the Built Environment
Examining social class, belonging, and exclusion in and through architecture and urbanism in Africa.

Participants

Architecture Faculty

Łukasz Stanek
Professor

Kuukuwa Manful
Assistant Professor

Urban Planning Faculty

Larissa Larsen
Professor

Martin Murray
Professor

University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars

Clint Abrahams
Senior Lecturer

Ayisha Ida Baffoe-Ashun
Lecturer

Zainab Bello
Lecturer

Michael Gameli Dziwornu
Lecturer

Taubman College TV Lab Fellows

Ayodele Arigbabu
TVLab Fellow

PhD Candidates

Dana Salama
PhD Candidate

Timothy Philip Berke
PhD Candidate

Maina Wachira
Student

Associates

Alice Korkor Ebeheakey
Lecturer

News

An overhead view of a person scanning documents with a camera and laptop

Manful receives MEAP grant to digitize architecture archives in Ghana

Publications

Planning in Post-Conflict Setting: The Case of South Sudan

Berke, Timothy. “Planning in Post-Conflict Setting: The Case of South Sudan.” In International Planning Case Studies, ed Lesli Hoey and Andrew Rumbach. https://planningcasestudies.org, 2021.

Do Internally Displaced Persons and Returnees Value City Service Differently than Host Residents in Juba, South Sudan

Berke, Timothy, and Larissa Larsen. “Do Internally Displaced Persons and Returnees Value City Service Differently than Host Residents in Juba, South Sudan.” Journal of Urban Affairs, Revise & Resubmit.

Using Land to Promote Refugee Self-Reliance in Uganda

Berke, Timothy, and Larissa Larsen. “Using Land to Promote Refugee Self-Reliance in Uganda.” Land 11, no. 3 (2022): 410. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11030410.

Building African Futures: 10 Manifestos for Transformative Architecture and Urbanism

Gallagher, Julia, Kuukuwa Manful, and Emmanuel Ofori-Sarpong, eds. Building African Futures: 10 Manifestos for Transformative Architecture and Urbanism. Iwalewa Books, 2023.

Buildings for Higher Education in Africa

Manful, Kuukuwa. “Venice Architecture Biennale: How Pioneering Ghanaian Architects Reckoned with Tropical Modernism.” The Conversation, 2023. https://theconversation.com/venice-architecture-biennale-how-pioneering-ghanaian-architects-reckoned-with-tropical-modernism-202092.

Invented Modernisms: Getting to Grips with Modernity in Three African State Buildings

Batsani-Ncube, Innocent, Julia Gallagher, and Kuukuwa Manful. “Invented Modernisms: Getting to Grips with Modernity in Three African State Buildings.” Curator: The Museum Journal, 65, no. 3 (2022): 569-589 https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12505.

On Becoming Undisciplined: A Meditation on Unbounded Architecture

Manful, Kuukuwa. “On Becoming Undisciplined: A Meditation on Unbounded Architecture.” Official Catalog, Biennale Architettura 2023: The Laboratory of the Future 1 (2023).

On the (Un)formalization of Architectural Design in Ghana

Manful, Kuukuwa. “On the (Un)formalization of Architectural Design in Ghana.” Allegories of the Visible, Triennal of Photography Hamburg 8 (2022).
https://2022.phototriennale.de/allegories-of-the-visible/contributors/kuukuwa-o-manful/.

Postbox Ghana

Manful, Kuukuwa. “Postbox Ghana.” Aperture 252 (2023): 66-71.

Precolonial Architecture of Ghana

Manful, Kuukuwa. “Precolonial Architecture of Ghana” and “Introduction, Ghana.” In Sub-Saharan Africa: Architectural Guide, edited by Philipp Meuser and Adil Dalbai. DOM Publishers, 2021.

Research with African Adolescents: Critical Epistemologies and Methodological Considerations

Manful, Kuukuwa. “Research with African Adolescents: Critical Epistemologies and Methodological Considerations.” African Affairs 121, no. 484 (2022): 467–485.
https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adac020.

Theorising the Politics of Unformal(ised) Architectures

Manful, Kuukuwa. “Afterword: Theorising the Politics of Unformal(ised) Architectures.” In Architecture and Politics in Africa: Making, Living and Imagining Identities through Buildings, edited by Joanne Tomkinson, Daniel Mulugeta, and Julia Gallagher. James Currey, 2022.

Venice Architecture Biennale: How Pioneering Ghanaian Architects Reckoned with Tropical Modernism

1980 in Parallax: Zbigniew Dmochowski in Nigeria

Stanek, Łukasz. “1980 in Parallax: Zbigniew Dmochowski in Nigeria.” Jencks Foundation, 2023. https://www.jencksfoundation.org/explore/text/1980-in-parallax-zbigniew-dmochowski-in-nigeria#6fe6ec0faea7.

The Architectural Gift: Lukasz Stanek in conversation with Frances Richard

Stanek, Łukasz. “The Architectural Gift: Lukasz Stanek in conversation with Frances Richard.” Interview by Frances Richard. Places Journal, April 2024. https://placesjournal.org/article/the-architectural-gift/.

Architecture in Global Socialism. Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War

Stanek, Łukasz. Architecture in Global Socialism. Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War. Princeton University Press, 2020.

Land Imaginaries

Ohene-Ayeh, Kwasi, and Łukasz Stanek. “Land Imaginaries.” e-flux Architecture, March 2024. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/the-gift/589574/land-imaginaries/.

Post-colonial Education in Kumasi

Stanek, Łukasz. “Post-colonial Education in Kumasi.” Architectural Review 9 (2022), 88-91. https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/post-colonial-education-in-kumasi?fbclid=IwAR0BjIXZtq_z2jh9HMfiGYwwi8sqYC1mfYFJFK-De_CAi_gAPXXfbKopQ5Q.

Race, Time, Architecture: Dilemmas of Africanization in Ghana, 1951-1966

Stanek, Łukasz. “Race, Time, Architecture: Dilemmas of Africanization in Ghana, 1951-1966.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 83, no. 2 (2024), 191-208. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2024.83.2.191.

Socialist Worldmaking: The Political Economy of Urban Comparison in the Cold War

Stanek, Łukasz. “Socialist Worldmaking: The Political Economy of Urban Comparison in the Cold War.” Urban Studies 59, no. 8 (2021), 1575-1596. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980211050178