Adjaye Associates designs The Africa Institute’s new campus in Sharjah
SHARJAH: The Africa Institute (TAI) in Sharjah — the first centre of its kind dedicated to the advanced study, research and documentation of Africa and the African diaspora located in the Arab world — has commissioned Adjaye Associates to design its new campus in downtown Sharjah. Sited at the corner of the Post Office Roundabout in the Al Mankah neighbourhood of Sharjah, TAI is conceived as a citadel, centered within the urban landscape and extending through an open yet connected series of five hi-rise buildings that will come to define Sharjah’s skyline. Within its urban context, the arrangement is understood as a single institution, which mediates between the different scales of the adjacent urban grain. Once inside, a shared internal courtyard punctuates the space and provides clear programmatic distinction. Taking its cues from the Gulf, Timbuktu and Hausa architecture where trabeated solid masonry façades oten shelter an internal courtyard, the ground floor is defined by the court which negotiates the transition between the city and TAI.
The project contemplates how one lives and learns, stimulated by the Middle East region, where the language of the courtyard becomes a central form in which climate and construct cohabitate. There are four clearly identifiable volumes floating above the ground floor which span the short side of the court and house the main elements of TAI, such as the Teaching, Learning and Administration. The Africa Hall — the fith floating volume — closes the courtyard to the south and welcomes visitors from under a generous overhang, further evoking a regional language which requires the articulation of shade.
The introduction of large overhangs efficiently reduces solar heat gains and is built to contribute to the overall building performance without the employment of large, technical infrastructure. Underground, a unified basement combines plant and storage requirements with public programmes, such as a Lecture Theatre. The exterior identity of the low carbon concrete structure is defined by four unobstructed, primarily solid facades, which are designed to limit direct sunlight exposure. The heat absorbed from the structural walls is released at night when temperatures drop in the desert. The court-facing facades are punctuated by small square openings where wide horizontal openings reflect the communal programme of classrooms, function areas and the library.
Each of the court facades repeats the same elements in a different order, creating a series of differing elevations which reflect the distinct character of the five volumes, while maintaining the integrity of the ensemble. Through the extension of the courtyard typology infused with an extended public realm — the space expands within the city as a newly centralised area of learning. A site of intellectual exchange between the Arab World and Africa, TAI presents an architecture that redefines the ways in which the public, the regional landscape and the landscape of academic excellence, exist in conversation and support one another.
Since establishing Adjaye Associates in 2000, Sir David Adjaye, its Founder, has crated a global team that is multicultural and energised by broad cultural discourse.
The practice has studios in New York, London and Accra, and has completed work in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Its largest commission to date, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), opened in 2016 on the National Mall in Washington, DC and was named “Cultural Event of the Year’’ by the New York Times.
In addition to NMAAHC, selected completed works include a new contemporary art center in San Antonio, Texas; The Webster in Los Angeles, a new flagship retail space for the luxury multi-brand retailer; Sugar Hill MixedUse Development and Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling in Harlem, New York; the Aïshti Foundation Arts and Shopping Complex in Beirut, Lebanon; the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art at the Hutchins Center, Harvard University; two neighborhood libraries in Washington, DC and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver in Colorado.
Current projects comprises Edo Museum of West African Art ( EMOWAA) in Benin City,
Nigeria; the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library in Johannesburg, South Africa; a new home for The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Abrahamic Family House, an interfaith complex in Abu Dhabi; a new facility for the Princeton University Art Museum and the Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art in Riga, Latvia, among others. In addition to major architectural commissions, David Adjaye is known for his frequent collaborations with contemporary artists on installations and exhibitions. In May 2019, the Ghana Freedom Pavilion — designed by him — was inaugurated at the 58th Venice Art Biennale. He also designed the 56th Venice Art Biennale with the late curator Okwui Enwezor; the River Reading Room for the Gwangju Biennale; the Sclera Pavilion for the London Design Festival as well as the Upper Room, featuring thirteen paintings by Chris Ofili, which is now part of the permanent collection of Tate Britain.
TAI, as the only institution of its kind located in the Gulf — the historical nexus of Africanarab cultural exchange — is uniquely positioned to illuminate African and Gulf ties and to expand understanding of African and African diaspora studies as a global practice. Injecting fresh thinking into the existing body of scholarship that mostly conceives of the Gulf and Africa as separate entities, TAI seeks to shed light on important yet overlooked historical linkages that shaped the past and influence present events, including forced and voluntary migratory paterns, market-based economic fluctuations and local and global political changes, of these regions.