CPDI AFRICA BLOG

Nation 'Building' is the PASSION work of Designers, Planners, and Artists alike! Our work at CPDI AFRICA Global Studio for African-Centered Architecture is to inspire Visionary Master Planners and Nation Builders! EXPO 2024 @ CPDI AFRICA OPENS🌍 AFROCENTRIC PEDAGOGY, COURSES & WORKSHOPS 🌎 RESOURCE CENTER FOR GREEN BUILDING MATERIALS, AFROCENTRIC BOOKS & FILMS 🌎 ARCHITECTURE COMPETITIONS & EXHIBITIONS 🌎 AFRICAN & DIASPORA DESIGN PROJECTS 🌎  DOCUMENTARY REVIEWS, BOOK READINGS 🌎 INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE PROGRAMS 🌎 EXCURSIONS & FIELD TRIPS 🌎      AFROCENTRIC MERCHANDISE!🌎 ******** ******* ******* ******** ********* ******** ********* ******** ********* ******** Follow this Space, Light up your Calendars - it's  Afrofuturism in Architecture & Beyond 2024! #Afrocentric #Afrofuturism #Architecture #AfricanDiaspora

It's Almost That Time CPDI AFRICA Family and Friends!!! EXPO 2022 Afrocentric Architecture Excursion & Workshop is here, LIVE in ABUJA, FCT Nigeria!💯💯 Family, you know we are All About Developing African Inspired Architecture in our Built Environment! If the Architecture is Culturally and Environmentally Sustainable, then CPDIA Celebrates the Designer and the Project!💯💯 Not in West Africa this summer, No Worries!! EXPO 2023 we host our International Conference!  This CPDI Africa Workshop introduces participants to the concepts for developing new African architectural languages, inspired by the culture and technology of traditional and contemporary African societies. We harness solutions to today's built environment problems, sourced from African science and design philosophies. The workshop surveys innovations in both the African and Diaspora-built environment. Professionals and students will be introduced to the research initiatives of CPDI Africa, the Art of African A...

  The CPDI Africa Global Studio for African Centered Architecture: an Academic Platform for Teaching a New Pedagogy in African Architecture. The CPDI Africa Global Studio for African Centered Architecture provides architects and designers an African centered academic platform for learning technical solutions for problem solving in their communities, while preserving culture and heritage through design.  The global studio is organized by CPDI Africa - the Community Planning and Design Initiative, Africa. Our Global Studio Faculty are leading professors and architects, renowned for their pedagogy in teaching African centered architecture.  Tenured at distinguished universities around the globe, our professors understand architecture is not separate from the lexicon of creative arts, but an integral part of the full human experience. CPDI Africa faculty is interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and represent a diversity of world cultures, languages and heritage. The CPDI Afr...

Author My name is Lorin Jackson. You may have met me during the launch of the inaugural CPDI Africa Internship in the summer of 2020. I was thrilled to be awarded the internship, but struggled to meet the expectations, and coupled with the uprising and turmoil that America faced the summer of 2020, I couldn’t maintain what was necessary to successfully matriculate. Recently someone commented on my initial Instagram post announcing my involvement in the internship, and it inspired me to complete the coursework on my own time. To be honest, I was challenged by the first research assignment that asked us to identify elements of our architecture. I was stumped at identifying “our,” let alone “architecture.” I initially identified as a “Black American,” but in light of the recent atrocities enacted by the state at the time, to call myself American felt disingenuous and incriminating. To be Black in America is to be in direct opposition to everything America was really created for, so there ...

Hello everyone, My name is John Ridley, I was born in Panama City Florida and raised in Kennesaw Georgia. I graduated from Kennesaw State University where I majored in African and African Diaspora Studies. My hobbies are health and fitness, and freshwater - saltwater fishing is another favorite hobby of mine. It naturally connects me with the hunter-gatherer spirit in a way! A fun fact about me, 3 years ago I decided to pick a guitar and self learn. I’m enjoying the challenge that comes along with it when learning to play a new song. I love architecture not just for its functional use, and creative use of materials, but for its cultural and symbolic meanings. As a researcher, the depth of scholarship and of course connection to identity, found in the subject matter grabbed my attention. I am thankful for my African architecture course at Kennesaw State University with Prof. Okwumabua, as it opened my eyes to so much of my cultural heritage as an African American that I would not have o...

I am a Haiti native, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I migrated from Haiti to Dominican Republic, Dominica, St. Thomas, and finally Miami, Florida. I started my architectural education at Miami-Dade College, and currently, I am the President of the American Institute of Architecture student chapter at Tuskegee University. My goal for every platform I occupied is to serve, motivate, and teach creatives to better themselves skillfully and academically.  My passion for architecture develops as I understood the influence a building has on a community. Through Afro-centric architecture, I learned how to design sustainable spaces for my Haitian community. Afrocentric Architecture is very detailed and has specific elements that speak to individual ethnic groups. My involvement with CPDI Africa was focused on Haitian architecture by designing a cultural resort that incorporates signature Haitian architectural elements. Within the Ti-Kay Resort, I include the high-double doors, cross raili...

Black educators at work to teach their youth in Los Angeles, 1995. Image Courtesy of Felema Yemaneberhan Have you ever taken a trip down memory lane that dredged up all the wonders of your childhood and the things you may have taken for granted? CPDI invites you to join Felema Yemaneberhan, an architectural designer and interdisciplinary artist, on her introspective journey that highlights the not so known nuances of our current realities. Her essay, titled We Wouldn't Be Here if They Just Told Us the Truth About Great Zimbabwe , calls out some of the shallow responses towards the recent Black Lives Matter movement, points to the instability of our colonial education's ivory tower, and urgently calls us to wake up and dismantle its building blocks and foundations. Her writing paints a picture of self-realisation wrapped in nostalgia and sentimentality. It evokes a mix of emotions in us the readers, ranging from elation to outright incredulity and keeps us glued to our screens....

Interesting Archaeological   findings near the Savannah River in Augusta Georgia. Link Here                                    

Spring 2020 Lecture Series 03 / Melvin Mitchell Melvin Mitchell Speaks on his new book. African American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities.

This series focuses on the origins of African American architecture, commencing with the arrival of captive Africans arriving on the shores of north America in the early 1600's. The articles, publications and videos referenced in this series speak of African architectural practices that were brought with them and used to build the houses in which they lived on the plantations. The articles go further on to speak of how some African architectural features became part of American architecture - in ways that could be described today as cultural appropriation. Many will not realize that design features such as the front porch and verandas are elements that came from west Africa. In this first series, we will share a few publications on African American architecture written by various authors. Trust me, they are incredible volumes of knowledge. Listed below is a quick summary on this posts content. 1. Precedents in African American Architecture: This is a thesis writte...