USC Lecture: Kunlé Adeyemi

Nigerian-born architect Kunlé Adeyemi, who will speak at USC Wednesday night, garnered global attention for his ‘Makoko Floating School,’ a prototypical structure built for the people of Makoko, a slum on water with nearly 100,000 residents in the lagoon at the heart of Lagos. The school-come-community center, made out of local materials including recycled floating barrels, lasted around three years. A stronger version was then built for the 15th Venice Biennale. The project is part of a study – ‘African Water Cities’ – underway at the office NLÉ, an architecture, design and urbanism practice founded by Adeyemi in 2010. Adeyemi, trained in the office of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, will talk about Makoko and his other work Wednesday at USC School of Architecture. Hear Adeyemi talk about Makoko and what Angelenos can learn from Lagos on this week’s DnA.