As expressed by 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale curator and architect Leslie Lokko, "after two of the most difficult and divisive years in living memory, architects have a unique opportunity to show the world what we do best: put forward ambitious and creative ideas that help us imagine a more equitable and optimistic future in common."

From Venice's approach to Africa as the lab for the future to Seoul's road to its next 100 years as a megapolis; from Chicago's art-meets-architecture-meets-civic-participation to Sharjah's "beauty of impermanence" in the Global South motto, 2023 will witness a series of architectural events trying to embody those forward ambitious and creative ideas, as explained by Lokko.

Architect Mariam Kamara—founder of Niamey, Niger-based firm Atelier Masōmī—is a contrarian of design pedagogy as it is largely practiced today. To Kamara, modern is not synonymous with European forms, architecture is not only for Westerners to define, and the so-called canon of great buildings actually ignores most of the built world. The Niger-based architect's rapidly growing practice informs a series of lectures she has delivered recently at MIT, Columbia University GSAPP, the African Futures Institute in Ghana, and Harvard GSD.

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A little less than two years after the onset of a global pandemic, inclusion in the architecture profession is unfortunately still a limited conversation. A 2020 survey by the UK’s Architects' Journal revealed a sobering amount of obstacles for Black architects in the UK, and in the United States, prominent Black practitioners such as Mabel O. Wilson of Studio & have questioned the Eurocentric nature of a large amount of architectural study.

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A few months ago – in July 2021, the 47-year-old Kariakoo Market went up in flames in Dar es Salaam. Designed by Tanzanian architect Beda Amuli, the market is a central landmark – a key part of Dar es Salaam’s commercial hub. Early images of a new Kariakoo Market show a taller structure, with six floors compared to the three in Amuli’s design. Conversations on social media have abounded on the new design, and if a “tower” typology is really the appropriate choice considering the unpopular nature of other similar “tower” market halls in Dar es Salaam.

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Countries that are part of the so-called “global south” have undergone many transformations in their cities and urban contexts in recent years due to the economic and social challenges they face. Urban growth, sustainable development, quality of life and health in emerging cities, and the development of their own cultural identity have been some of the issues that local architecture had to incorporate.

Young architects have understood the importance of making an architecture that is deeply rooted in their own territory while giving this architecture a clear local identity. By generating new typologies and using their own resources and materials, they have presented innovative, site-specific, and, above all, solutions with a new fresh focus towards what represents them as creators of this architecture.

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