Hello, I’m Emmanuel

Profile

I am an architect with over a decade of experience spanning both practice and academia. I’ve worked with Low Design Office and S. Tetteh and Associates, playing key roles in award-winning projects like the Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform and the 5000 for 5000 affordable housing project. Since 2018, I have been a faculty member at the School of Architecture and Design at Central University in Accra, where my research-led studios have explored new cities, design for emergency response, and non-pedigreed architecture in marginalised communities, including witch camps and ‘kiosk estates’. From 2019 to 2021, I served as the assistant coordinator and later coordinator of the Bachelor of Architecture thesis programme, shaping the school’s research culture with my passion for interdisciplinarity and design-as-inquiry.

Currently, I am a doctoral researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, as a recipient of the Politics and International Studies 60th Anniversary Scholarship. My research interrogates the politics of urban design and implementation in post-independence new city projects in East and West Africa, with a focus on Ghana and Kenya. I recently co-edited Building African Futures: 10 Manifestos for Transformative Architecture and Urbanism (2023). Launched at the 2023 Venice Biennale, the book brings together ideas from young professionals across eight African countries, tackling issues of housing, participation, and spatial injustices.

Education

• 2022 – 2025 SOAS, University of London
  PhD in Politics and International Studies,
  Thesis Title – Poetics of the future city: politics, power, and space in Accra and Kalobeyei.
  Synopsis: My research examines the recent wave of new city projects across Africa. It focuses on the often-overlooked role of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. By engaging with the concept of utopian imaginaries and drawing on both textual and empirical findings from fieldwork in Ghana and Kenya, the project delves into the spatio-political outcomes of two large-scale master plans. This study contributes to our understanding of the politics of new cities in Africa and the influence of global institutions in shaping African urban dynamics.
• 2010 – 2013 Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
  Master of Architecture Degree
  Thesis – Biomimetic nature observatory: exploring the convergence of nature, vernacular and sustainable design.
• 2006 – 2010 Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
  B.Sc. Architecture – Second Class Upper Division
  Dissertation – Sustainable urbanism: an analysis of the Central Business District of Kumasi from a new urbanist perspective.

Industry and Teaching Experience

• September 2022 – March 2023 Dep’t of Politics and International Studies – SOAS University of London
• February 2018 – September 2022    School of Architecture and Design – Central University, Ghana
• January 2016 –  February 2018  – S. Tetteh & Associates
• September 2013 – December 2015 – Low Design Office
• 2014 – Present  – Sociarchi

Research Experience

• 2021-2022 –  Urban Studies Action Research Project – Central University
  Co-designed a participatory action research project in Urban Studies for Tema, a new town in the Greater Accra Region. This project brought together students, faculty, and local government officials from the Tema.
  Municipality to support various community improvement initiatives.

• 2012 – Re-cultivating the Garden City – Columbia University & KNUST
  The architecture department selected me to participate and contribute to this collaborative project between Columbia University’s Millennium Cities Initiative, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science, and
  Technology, and the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly.

• June – July 2009  – Working on Cities – Erasmus University & KNUST
  Served as a research assistant for an international research project based in Kumasi. The project was a collaboration with staff and graduate students from the International Institute of Urban Management of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, to study the governance of informal urban enclaves.

Conferences and presentations

• The 18th International Docomomo Conference Santiago 2024 – Supported session “‘Informal’ Modernisms: Urban Design, Planning Narratives, and New Cities” as Session Chair, December 2024 

• Guest Lecture, Taubman College – Michigan University, – October 2024 

• Tutor for Writing Campus,  Modernisms University of Rwanda, Kigali – March 2024

• Venice Biennale Panelist, “Panel Discussion and Book Launch – Building African Futures,”  Italy – September 2023

• European Conference on African Studies, Germany – May 2023 

• Architecture in Africa’s International Relations Workshop organised by the Institute for African Studies, University of Ghana, the African Futures Institute and the African State Architecture project, SOAS, University of London,  – September 2022 

• Mentor and member of the organising team for the Writing West African University Campus Modernism: Joint Ghana-Nigeria Workshop – June 2021

• Guest Reviewer and Discussant, School of Architecture , Princeton University – April 2021

• British International Studies Conference – September 2020

•  Invited Lecture , Department of Architecture ,KNUST – January 2018

• Invited lecture , Central University , School of Architecture and Design – October 2016