Adjaye Associates will design a new campus in downtown Sharjah for The Africa Institute. The Institute is the first center of its kind fully dedicated to the advanced study, research, and documentation of Africa and the African diaspora in the Arab world. The development of The Africa Institute is spearheaded by Cornell University Professor Salah M. Hassan, who was appointed its founding Director in 2018.
The design will create an enclosed 343,175-sf campus with five wings between four and seven stories each, connected by a series of open-air interior courtyards that span the entire ground floor and feature fountains and landscaping with native plants. All four facades will include entryways to welcome the public and connect The Institute with surrounding institutions, organizations, and public walkways.
The campus will include spaces of differing character and scale for classes and seminars, a research library and climatized archive facility, a flexible auditorium and performance space, an exhibition gallery, a restaurant and cafe, and a bookstore. The Institute is also commissioning artists to create site-specific installations throughout the public spaces of the new building, which will be announced at a later date.
“We selected David Adjaye to create the first purpose-built home for this vital institution because of his experience in designing buildings that foster learning, collaboration, and community building,” said The Africa Institute President Hoor Al Qasimi, in a release. “We started working together in 2017 so that the vision for The Africa Institute and the building that supports its critical mission would be developed hand-in-hand.”
Following a two-year collaboration, the design for The Africa Institute will be unveiled on Oct. 8, 2020.
Related Stories
| Apr 25, 2012
J.C. Anderson selected for 50,000-sf build out at Chicago’s DePaul University
The build-out will consist of the construction of new offices, meeting rooms, video rooms and a state-of-the-art multi-tiered Trading Room.
| Apr 18, 2012
Perkins+Will designs new complex for Johns Hopkins Hosptial
The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center and the Sheikh Zayed Tower create transformative patient-centric care.
| Apr 16, 2012
UNT lab designed to study green energy technologies completed
Lab to test energy technologies and systems in order to achieve a net-zero consumption of energy.
| Apr 13, 2012
Goettsch Partners designs new music building for Northwestern
The showcase facility is the recital hall, an intimate, two-level space with undulating walls of wood that provide optimal acoustics and lead to the stage, as well as a 50-foot-high wall of cable-supported, double-skin glass
| Apr 11, 2012
C.W. Driver completes Rec Center on CSUN campus
The state-of-the-art fitness center supports university’s goal to encourage student recruitment and retention.
| Mar 27, 2012
Groundbreaking held for Valencia College West Campus Building 10 in Orlando
Project led by design-build team of SchenkelShultz Architecture and McCree General Contractors, both of Orlando.
| Mar 26, 2012
McCarthy tops off Math and Science Building at San Diego Mesa College
Designed by Architects | Delawie Wilkes Rodrigues Barker, the new San Diego Mesa College Math and Science Building will provide new educational space for students pursuing degree and certificate programs in biology, chemistry, physical sciences and mathematics.
| Mar 26, 2012
Ball State University completes nation's largest ground-source geothermal system
Ball State's geothermal system will replace four aging coal-fired boilers to provide renewable power that will heat and cool 47 university buildings, representing 5.5-million-sf on the 660-acre campus.
| Mar 14, 2012
Tsoi/Kobus and Centerbrook to design Jackson Laboratory facility in Farmington, Conn.
Building will house research into personalized, gene-based cancer screening and treatment.
