Africatown
International Design Idea Competition
2nd Place Entry
The Africatown Blueways is a network of discrete interventions designed with shared DNA, nested throughout the region’s waterways to create a unified identity. Designed with care, each commemorates and uplifts the story and legacy of Africatown. The spirit of the Africatown Blueway strives to honor the 110 Clotilda survivors, brought as enslaved people from modern-day Benin, who through hard work and improvisation, built home. We acknowledge and use this improvisation to pay homage to the contributions of Africatown’s founders and descendants, such that each design speaks to their layered and abundant cultural legacy.
The project strives to manifest the invisible ties between Africa and the Black American diaspora in elevating three themes creating a new Afrocentric architecture:
Vodun and Ancestral Reverence
Circular and Monolithic Forms
Improvisational Practices
The Africatown Blueways project challenged us to propel a responsible form of design thinking that uplifts the voices of Africatown. The project aspires to elevate this community, its history and culture, through a unified vision of craft, innovation, aesthetics, and identity.
Project was completed in collaboration with Jamel Williams.
