Building Tomorrow's Africa

Laying the first stone of a building is never a neutral act. In Africa, and in Cameroon especially, every building that rises out of the ground tells a story about climate, materials, power, and memory. Yet looking at the construction sites of Douala, Yaoundé, or Garoua, a question is pressing itself with growing urgency on an entire generation of practitioners: are we still building for Africa, or are we, out of convenience, still importing forms conceived elsewhere?

That question runs through the work of figures such as Cameroonian architect Mesmin Watat-Djanga, designer of the future headquarters of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) in Yaoundé. A D.P.L.G. graduate of the Paris-Tolbiac school of architecture in 1988, he founded the Cabinet Architecture Ingénierie Urbanisme (CAIU) upon his return home, active in architecture, engineering, and urban planning since 1990. Two architecture competitions won one for the OHADA headquarters, the other for the Sodecoton headquarters in Garoua and a conviction he stated plainly at the groundbreaking ceremony for the OHADA headquarters in August 2019: “It's an eco-friendly building that lets us save energy. We're going to use local materials.” That single sentence sums up the debate now animating contemporary African architecture.

A Cumbersome Legacy

To understand the current state of architecture in Cameroon, one has to go back to its colonial foundations. The administrative centers of Douala and Yaoundé were designed according to imported logics: steep-pitched roofs suited to temperate climates, closed façades, urban grids copied from European cities with no regard for humid heat, torrential rains, or local communal ways of life. At independence, rather than break with this model, much of the country's architectural production extended it, layering on the codes of 1960s-80s international modernism: raw concrete, glass façades, administrative towers as symbols of national prestige.

Six decades on, the result is a hybrid, often uncomfortable built landscape: buildings air-conditioned at great expense because their design ignores natural ventilation, imported materials glass, aluminum, tiling that are costly and energy-intensive to produce, and an architectural identity still struggling to assert itself against models imported from Europe, the Gulf, or, more recently, China.

The Great Paradox of African Cities

The African continent is today the site of the fastest urban growth in the world, and Cameroon is no exception.

This accelerated urbanization creates a paradox every practicing architect knows well: demand for construction has never been higher, yet the quality and relevance of what gets built remain well below actual needs. On one side, entire neighborhoods densify spontaneously, with no urban plan or technical support, for lack of affordable housing designed for the local climate and incomes. On the other, prestige commissions — corporate headquarters, hotels, administrative towers often reproduce imported aesthetic standards, as if modernity could only be expressed through glass and steel, regardless of climate.

Between these two extremes, the voice of African architects themselves too often remains secondary in the making of the city relegated behind that of developers, international funders, or the foreign firms entrusted with major projects, for lack of a regulatory framework that adequately protects the local profession.

The Faces Redrawing African Architecture

Faced with this state of affairs, a generation of practitioners is showing, project after project, that another path is possible, an architecture that starts from climate, available materials, and actual uses, rather than being subjected to them.

Cameroon

Mesmin Watat-Djanga

Founder of the CAIU firm, designer of the OHADA headquarters (Yaoundé) and the Sodecoton headquarters (Garoua). Champions an energy-efficient architecture built with local materials.

Burkina Faso

Diébédo Francis Kéré

The first African architect to win the Pritzker Prize (2022). Since the Gando primary school, he has built with raw earth, natural ventilation, and community participation.

Ghana

Sir David Adjaye

Designer of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. The first architect of African descent to receive the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, in 2021.

Niger

Mariam Kamara

Founder of atelier masōmī in Niamey. Her Hikma complex combines raw earth, thermal mass, and rainwater harvesting in service of Sahelian realities.

What unites these paths, beyond borders and styles, is the rejection of a shared misconception: that an African building must borrow its forms or materials from elsewhere to be considered modern. The OHADA headquarters, as described by its designer, is a local illustration of this: ten stories, two hundred modular offices, an auditorium, but also a green space on every floor, large glazed bays designed for natural light rather than aesthetics alone, and a deliberate choice of local materials to lower the building's energy bill.

Cameroon in Particular: Between Potential and Lag

Cameroon has rare assets: a climatic and geological diversity that provides access to lateritic earth, bamboo, hardwoods, and volcanic stone — resources historically used in traditional housing (the shell-shaped huts of the North, Bamileke architecture in the West, stilt housing along the coast) before being largely abandoned in favor of concrete block and corrugated sheet metal, wrongly seen as the only symbols of modernity.

Three structural weaknesses are today holding back the emergence of an architecture fully suited to the country:

An architectural and urban policy still in its infancy. Zoning and urban plans exist, but their enforcement remains uneven, allowing dense neighborhoods to develop without technical support or adequate infrastructure.

An undervaluing of local materials and know-how. Raw or stabilized earth, though inexpensive, widely available, and thermally high-performing, remains associated in the collective imagination with poverty rather than innovation.

A profession still under-protected against competition from foreign firms for major commissions, and local architectural training that would benefit from being strengthened and better connected to regional schools such as EAMAU.

But encouraging signs do exist: the OHADA headquarters under construction, the Sodecoton headquarters in Garoua, the rising visibility of a new generation of internationally trained Cameroonian architects returning home, and growing interest among private developers in buildings less dependent on mechanical air conditioning.

Toward a “Truly African” Architecture

What would a fully self-assured architecture look like — neither nostalgic nor imitative? Three principles recur, consistently, in the work of the continent's most recognized practitioners today.

Bioclimatic Design as a Starting Point, Not an Option

Orienting buildings according to the sun and prevailing winds, generous roof overhangs, ventilated double-skin façades, interior courtyards: these devices, inherited from traditional architecture, drastically reduce the need for mechanical air conditioning.

An Unapologetic Return to Local Materials

Raw or compressed earth, stabilized earth bricks, bamboo, regional timber, volcanic stone: these resources, long dismissed as “poor,” turn out to be more economical, better suited to the climate, and far less carbon-intensive than imported materials. This is exactly the choice claimed for the OHADA headquarters in Yaoundé.

Cultural Identity Built Into the Form, Not Applied to the Façade

This is not about adding a decorative “African” motif to an imported floor plan, but about starting over from actual uses: the shared courtyard, the veranda, outdoor spaces for socializing, the gradation between public and private space found across many of the continent's cultures.

Five Priorities for the Future

Building on this diagnosis, five priorities stand out if Cameroonian and African architecture is to fully deliver on its promise in the decades ahead.

Strengthen training for architects and building tradespeople in local construction techniques.

Enforce existing urban plans more rigorously.

Reserve a genuine place for local architects in major public commissions, through open competitions.

Develop standardized local-material supply chains to reassure developers and insurers.

Raise awareness among public and private developers of the real, lifetime cost of architecture poorly suited to the climate.

Conclusion: Building With, Not Against

The current state of architecture in Cameroon and across the continent is neither a failure to lament nor a golden age to celebrate: it is a work in progress, caught between a cumbersome legacy, an urbanization that allows little respite, and the gradual emergence of a generation of practitioners who refuse to choose between modernity and identity. The OHADA headquarters now rising in Yaoundé, like Francis Kéré's schools in Burkina Faso or Mariam Kamara's complexes in Niger, all say the same thing, each in its own way: building in Africa is not about importing solutions, it's about inventing them from what the continent already has its climate, its earth, its know-how, and its people.

Sources: Wikipédia — Watat Djanga Mesmin · OHADA.com — Siège de l'OHADA : le chantier lancé · Forbes Afrique — Les grandes figures de l'architecture africaine contemporaine.