#04 Earth and Other Works| Experience to Enquiry:Architecture Across Scales

Tosin Oshinowo and Nzinga Biegueng Mboup explore how experience, place and making shape architectural knowledge across scales in West Africa

Earth and Other Works is a lecture series developed by the African Futures Institute in collaboration with Adjaye Associates (Accra), running from September 2026 to February 2027. The series brings together architects, designers, artists, and practitioners whose work asks a fundamental question: what does it mean to make something from the conditions already around us? Organised loosely through the registers of ‘below’ and ‘above’, Earth and Other Works considers making as a movement between what is grounded and what is possible.

Join us for the fourth lecture in the series and our final talk of 2026, with Tosin Oshinowo and Nzinga Biegueng Mboup.

How do personal experience, place, and making shape architectural knowledge?

Drawing on their work in Lagos and Dakar, Tosin Oshinowo and Nzinga Biegueng Mboup explore the relationship between research and practice through a joint presentation.

From the body and material details to buildings, neighbourhoods and cities, they consider how encounters with people, craft, climate and resources put design intentions to the test. What can the process of making reveal? Whose knowledge shapes architectural decisions, and how does an architect’s responsibility change across scales?

Through their projects and experiences, the speakers reflect on how lessons from individual buildings can travel beyond the boundaries of a practice. Teaching, mentorship and collaboration become ways of sharing knowledge, opening questions and developing collective enquiry across West Africa.

The presentation will be followed by a moderated conversation and an audience Q&A.

About the speakers

Tosin Oshinowo

Tosin Oshinowo is a Nigerian architect, designer and curator, and the founder and principal of Lagos-based Oshinowo Studio. Her work draws on Yoruba culture and local material traditions to explore socially responsive approaches to architecture and urbanism. Spanning homes, civic buildings and community projects, her practice considers how design can respond to cultural and climatic conditions. She curated the 2023 Sharjah Architecture Triennial, The Beauty of Impermanence: An Architecture of Adaptability.

Nzinga Biegueng Mboup

Nzinga Biegueng Mboup is a Senegalese architect, researcher and curator based in Dakar, and co-founder of Worofila, a practice specialising in bioclimatic design and construction using locally sourced earth and biomaterials. Her work brings architectural practice into conversation with research on Dakar’s housing, urban development and cultural heritage. She has also contributed to research at the African Futures Institute and to mentorship through the Prince Claus Fund’s Building Beyond programme.