Hi, and welcome back. This week, we’re diving into some architectural geography. More specifically, it is about what the current concentration of major architectural commissions on the African continent means for a practice that wants to participate in them, and where the gap between ambition and readiness typically lies.

Africa is generating some of the largest and most structurally complex architectural commissions in the world right now. The conditions that produce those commissions are specific and demanding, and most practices working primarily in Western markets are not yet prepared for them.

Africa is urbanising faster than any other continent. By 2050 it is projected to add roughly a billion people to its cities, and most of what that growth requires is yet to be built. The client in these commissions is typically a government ministry or state enterprise. The brief carries representational weight that development-driven work in Europe rarely does: a new national airport is expected to look like a capable country, signal economic ambition to international investors, and serve a domestic population that partly measures its government by what it builds. That starting condition shapes the brief, the fee logic, and the relationship between international and local firms from the outset.

Zaha Hadid Architects and Pascall+Watson are progressing construction on Bishoftu International Airport for Ethiopian Airlines, 40 kilometres south of Addis Ababa. Phase One is designed for 60 million passengers per year, scaling to 110 million across four runways at full build-out. Ethiopia's Prime Minister laid the cornerstone in January 2026, placing the commission firmly within national strategy. Total investment stands at US$12.5 billion.

Read more about Bishoftu International Airport here.

Foster + Partners has developed designs for the Icolo e Bengo Aerotropolis with Angola's Ministry of Transport: a 13,480-hectare new city surrounding the recently completed Agostinho Neto International Airport. It is the firm's first project on the continent. A sovereign client commissions a new city. Few markets still produce briefs of that type.

Read more about the Icolo e Bengo Aerotropolis here.

Benoy's City Walk is a 250-hectare mixed-use masterplan on Airport Road in Abuja, currently in Phase One. The development includes Africa's tallest tower at 450 metres alongside Nigeria's largest indoor arena, positioned within the capital's Free Trade Zone where the city first presents itself to international arrivals.

Read more about City Walk Abuja here.

Kéré Architecture has recently opened the Goethe-Institut Sénégal in Dakar. Across all of the institution's global locations, this is the first building designed specifically for it. Major international cultural clients are now seeking locally grounded architectural expertise for their permanent buildings, and commissioning on that basis.

Read more about the Goethe-Institut Sénégal here.

The inaugural Pan-African Architecture Biennale is confirmed for Nairobi in September 2026, curated by Somali-Italian architect Omar Degan in partnership with the Architectural Association of Kenya. Representing all 54 African nations, it routes the continental architectural conversation through Africa on its own terms.

Read more about the Pan-African Architecture Biennale here.

Participating in Africa's sovereign commission market requires specific capabilities that European practice develops inconsistently, if at all.

What does working in these markets actually take?

Local partnership is close to mandatory. ZHA is working with Pascall+Watson on Bishoftu. Foster + Partners has engaged directly through Angola's Ministry. The international firm brings design authority and technical capacity; the local partner contributes procurement knowledge, contractor relationships, and regulatory context. That partnership quality tends to determine whether the project survives the gap between concept and delivery, and practices that treat local partnership as a compliance step rather than a genuine collaborative investment consistently underdeliver.

Climate is a specific technical constraint that European experience leaves largely unaddressed. Passive cooling, natural ventilation, and material durability under heat and humidity are structural design requirements across most of sub-Saharan Africa. Kéré Architecture has spent twenty years building that knowledge through projects in Burkina Faso, Mali, and across West Africa. The Goethe-Institut commission in Dakar is a direct result of that investment: an international cultural institution sought out locally grounded expertise precisely because it recognised what generalist international practice cannot supply.

The Biennale signals a third shift. African architects organising a continental critical discourse at this scale raises the competitive standard for international firms. The client base is more architecturally informed. Local practices are more capable and better networked. The window for establishing genuine local relationships before the market consolidates further around regional expertise is open, but it is narrowing.

Taken together, these signals point to a decision a practice needs to make about which entry model it is actually capable of. The ZHA and Foster + Partners model operates through global design authority with local delivery partnerships. The Kéré model is built on deep regional knowledge accumulated over decades of direct field practice. Both produce major commissions, but through different preparation, timelines, and forms of earned trust. A practice that has not been honest with itself about which model it can credibly execute is not yet ready to compete in this market, regardless of portfolio quality.

Africa's urbanisation rate, sovereign wealth formation, and infrastructure deficit are structural conditions that will deepen over the coming decade. The commissions visible now are the early pattern of a much larger volume of work. What does this mean for the practising architect? As an individual employee, developing your knowledge within regional African contexts, technically and culturally, will improve your resume in an attractively tailored way. As a firm, strategic networking and the acquisition of the right talent for geographically specific urbanisation opportunities ought to be at your core moving forward to compete in this immense and growing market.

The preparation that matters, whether building a genuine regional knowledge base or committing to a long-term local partnership, takes years to develop. Starting that work now will still put you ahead of most.

Have you worked in African markets, or seriously considered it? I would be curious to know what the conditions felt like on the delivery side.

See you next week!

-Johan

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