A compendium of essays, conversations and paradigmatic projects conceived as an adaptive platform on synthetic-vernacular architecture in Africa and its potential role as cultural driver for global scenarios.

Based on almost ten years of applied research of Paolo Cascone and his CODESIGNLAB practice in Africa, the book investigates the potential role of indigenous and spontaneous architecture in the contemporary debate on sustainability in architectural design. How to respond to climatic changes reconciling nature with tekne? What is the social role of technology? How architects would reconsider their practices supporting community-oriented projects? These questions are discussed through a number of paradigmatic projects and conversations between the author and a panel of experts from different backgrounds in order to shape an interdisciplinary approach that bridges different knowledges.

The theoretical assumption for this investigation is based on the observation of cause-effect relations, between different urban and architectural configurations and their performances: social, environmental, structural etc. in both pre-colonial and informal cultures around Africa.
The diachronic approach intends to generate, after many years of post-colonial studies, an operative agenda of possible strategies, which is in accordance with different contextual conditions starting from the anthropological and the climatic ones.

Such an agenda responds to a global cultural need for an ecological shift in the contemporary design and manufacturing processes, which should bridge high and low-tech cultures. Therefore, the book is conceived also as a sort of manual that is articulated around emergent principles inspired by traditional and informal African practices and architectures: self-similarity and diversified typologies, material optimisation and circular economy, self-sufficiency and responsive dwellings. Each principle is confronted also with the work of pioneers such as Hassan Fathy, Fabrizio Carola etc. with the aim of sharing and evolving such tremendous heritage by introducing the case studies realized in the frame of the [AF] African Fabbers project over the last decade.

With Contributions of
David Adjaye - David Adjaye Architects - London/NYC/Accra

Chirstian Benimana /MASS - Architect - Boston/Kigali

Cheick Diallo - Designer - Bamako/Mali

Ron Eglash - Professor of ethnomathematics -University of Michigan

Mariam Kamara - Architect Atelier Masomi-Niamey Niger

Ugo La Pietra - designer - Milan

Massimo Moretti - founder of WASP - Italy

AbdouMaliq Simone - Professor of sociology - University of Sheffield

Paul Assako - Professor of history of contemporary arts -University of Yaounde /Cameroon