The Accra Architecture & Urbanism Writing Workshop takes place Friday, July 6 through Sunday, July 8, 2018 in Accra, Ghana. The workshop is being instituted to coach a number of emerging Architectural and urban focused academics in West Africa to be able to write academic blog articles to initiate a West African Architecture and Urbanism blog. These articles will be of sufficient quality to be submitted as comment pieces for key architecture journals and publications such as Architectural Review and the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians.
Current academic architectural writing lacks the voices of indigenous African authors, and the younger academics whom this workshop is aimed at are more likely to engage with digital media and the blog as a first step into academe. Existing architecture blogs such as DeZeen, ArchDaily, and the Aga Khan curated blog, Archnet make only passing mention of African architecture as the exotic cf. Kunle Adeyemi’s floating school and Matthias Kere’s Gando school. The blog articles that this workshop will seek to elicit will focus on getting the participants to write about contemporary emerging architecture and urban developments in and around the West African city of Accra, Ghana.
Methodology
Participants will be mentored online by Dr. Pam Nichols, director of the Wits Writing Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Professor Iain Jackson, School of Architecture University of Liverpool; and Professor Miles Glendinning, Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies and Chair Docomomo International Panel on Urbanism and Landscape. Professor Ola Uduku, Manchester School of Architecture, will run the programme ‘on the ground’ from Accra. Academic Dr. Joseph Frimpong, Ashesi University College; Kuukuwa Manful, Communications Manager, Africa Oxford Initiative; and Victoria Okoye, PhD Student, School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, will assist with the running of the programme.
Potential sites of investigation:
– One Airport Square
– Ecobank
– Historic house(s) in Jamestown / Ga Mashie
– Balme Library or Children’s Library
Outputs
The resulting texts will be edited and curated to become the inaugural articles for an African blog but also will be offered as commentary for the aforementioned peer reviewed journals – with a view to using this as a basis for future regular contributions and the possibility of a future West Africa themed journal publication on the strength of the writing of the blog pieces. Professor Ola Uduku will also negotiate the sub-hosting of the journal within the University of Liverpool Trans National Architecture blog.
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