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Architects: Oshinowo Studio
- Area: 380 m²
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:Tolu Sanusi
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Lead Architect: Tosin Oshinowo
Text description provided by the architects. Acclaimed Lagos-based architecture practice Oshinowo Studio (formerly cmDesign Atelier) has designed sports and streetwear label adidas’s first West African flagship store in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. Located in the sought-after Victoria Island area, Oshinowo Studio won the project following a design competition held by ONL Estates with a brief to draw together Nigerian art, culture, and aesthetics with the global brand’s style and personality.
Oshinowo Studio’s design draws inspiration from Lagos itself, the home of urban culture in Nigeria and a global center of creativity. The two-floor, 380 square-meter project is a retrofit of an existing 1970s building and is conceived as a combination of clean lines overlaid with a façade that adds a layered texture, reflecting the depth and complexity of the upcycling, reuse, and regeneration that can be found throughout the city.
Constructed using a combination of solid and perforated corrugated aluminum sheets traditionally used as roofing in Lagos’s mass housing projects, the striking façade also features LED linear lighting to illuminate the ridged surface, creating a dynamic and unexpected visual effect. In this way, simple and functional materials are elevated to create an optical illusion in which the level of transparency depends on the viewer’s distance from the building. This ingenious façade configuration means the store has a visible shop window and ample natural sunlight that is sufficiently diffuse to prevent the interior from overheating.
In addition to the aluminum-clad façade, Oshinowo Studio’s approach involved adding a steel frame and glass extension, a solar power system, a sewage treatment plant with the capacity for the reuse of wastewater as irrigation, and an advanced air conditioning system. Existing 25-year-old Roystonea regia trees have been retained, alongside the installation of a new basketball half-court and stage for entertainment, which present opportunities for customer events and activations.
The project represents an opportunity for adidas, which also carried out the interior design and fit-out of the store, to collaborate with contemporary Nigerian artists Chinelo Ezewudo, Osa Okunkpolor, Dennis Osadebe, and Ayoola Gbolahan. Tosin Oshinowo, Founder Oshinowo Studio, said: “We have relished the opportunity to create a scheme that combines our love of Lagos and Nigerian contemporary culture with our global perspective and approach. Our design is inspired by the city’s resilient, adaptable, and go-getter resolve, building a place of convergence for sports and culture.”
