Francis Kéré: 2021 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medalist Public Talk

good evening and welcome everyone to the thomas jefferson foundation medalist and architecture lecturer this evening i'm isla berman dean of the school of architecture and the thomas jefferson medal in architecture is given on behalf of two organizations that share a direct connection to thomas jefferson the university of virginia founded by jefferson in 1819 and the thomas jefferson foundation at monticello and we have both presidents of these two illustrious institutions with us this evening for this event i'm going to first introduce leslie leslie bauman bowman since 2008 leslie green bowman has served as president of the

thomas jefferson foundation which owns and operates the unesco world heritage site in monticello prior to her time at monticello leslie served as the director of the winterthir museum for nine years leslie has spearheaded efforts to bring history forward into national and global dialogue propelling restoration dialogue and programs that offer an honest complicated and inclusive view of our past common ground for all americans welcome leslie and thank you for joining us this evening thank you ayla it's my privilege and honor to be here um you know thomas jefferson once described architecture as an elegant and useful

art one of his lifelong ambitions was to educate the public about good architecture in both public and private buildings he wrote to his friend james madison in 1787 how is a taste in this beautiful art to be formed in our countrymen unless we avail ourselves of every occasion of presenting to them models for their study and imitation jefferson studied the best architecture of the past with the goal of creating and influencing buildings that would endure in the canon for centuries we see this not only at monticello and the university of virginia but the state capital

in richmond and in his work to establish a new federal style of architecture across washington d.c i think more than any other of the founders jefferson understood that a new government and a new nation did not themselves constitute a cultural or civilized society he understood the importance and the power of the arts particularly architecture to elevate in the eyes of the world the young and often dismissed united states he believed that architecture had the power to and i quote improve the state of my countrymen increase their reputation reconcile them to the respect of the world

and procure them its praise today we join you from monticello and the university of virginia which are together designated a unesco world heritage site recognized as outstanding examples of architectural design and human genius we join you to answer today the same question jefferson posed madison in my aforementioned quotation how is the field of architecture to advance unless we are presented with models for study and imitation the thomas jefferson foundation medal in architecture was established in 1966 at monticello in partnership with the school of architecture at the university of virginia to recognize notable achievement and design

or distinguished contributions to the field of architecture with this medal we honor and eliminate those who advance the field with worthy models for study and imitation for advancement not just of architecture but of society over the last 56 years we have selected architects from divergent backgrounds they have produced a rich variety of buildings landscapes theories and more generally ideas that have impacted our larger built environment and indeed our world the architecture medal has been awarded to 59 architects landscape architects artists urban planners architectural historians and even three politicians and one iman in total past winners

have come from 18 different countries from five continents their collective work includes some of the best examples of architecture produced in the world past honorees include the inaugural prize recipient mies van der rohe the historian louis mumford as well as zaha hadid maya lin toyo ito lori olin sir david aj and the list goes on and on so please join me in thanking francis cafe and acknowledging the role of the other past awardees for their incredible work which to paraphrase jefferson presents the world citizens with models that educate and enlighten us to the true meaning

of this beautiful and civilized art form it's my pleasure to turn the screen over to the president of the university of virginia jim ryan the president is mute he's mute okay you think after a year of zooming i would know how to unmute myself um leslie thank you it's great to see all of you um i want to thank you leslie for your partnership in the partnership of the thomas jefferson foundation and thanks also to isla berman the dean of the school of architecture for continuing this tradition even in the midst of a challenging and

highly unusual year i'm honored to be here for this important occasion and though i wish we could be together in person it is nonetheless uh great to see you or at least one screen of the 12 of you at a time i am delighted that on the eve of jefferson's birthday we will be honoring renowned architect francis carrey with the medal that bears jefferson's name this is the highest external honor awarded by the university of virginia and it's one that recognizes excellence and contributions to the common good even without the pandemic this is a time

of great challenge for colleges and universities when people are questioning the very value and importance of higher education i personally believe and have often said that uva can best meet this challenge by striving to be both great and good in all that we do and we have oriented a great deal of our work around this very simple idea that as we aspire to be a world-class university with a heart and a soul whose highest purpose and highest calling is to serve the public whether through teaching research or healthcare or our goal at its core is

to improve the human condition and advance the common good it's all together fitting therefore the thomas jefferson foundation medal should be awarded to francis carey who embodies this dual commitment to both the great and the good indeed his work in building schools public buildings and health care facilities in burkina faso europe the us and around the world has set an example for all of us in how to achieve both goodness and greatness just as it will likely become impossible for universities to be great if they're not all so good kayleigh's work has shown us that

this dual approach is possible in the fields of architecture art and design and in doing so he set a new standard that transcends a single discipline his commitment to working side by side with the communities in which his works are situated and to infusing democratic principles of transparency and openness in his designs is particularly striking it's not surprising that critics have hailed his work as inclusive unpretentious and as radically simple of his own approach he has said don't follow the mainstream be yourself just go what are you waiting for try to find another way to

use your skills to help your community that is how together we can make our world better it is this commitment to making the world better that we share with mr k-ray and we applaud his novel approach to the noble and historic endeavor of architecture though i have a deep appreciation for the design function and beauty of the built environment i confess my expertise pales in comparison to that of isle of berman's and so i know you will all look forward to hearing her description of mr kerry's work and achievements and of course hearing from our

medalist himself so let me end by saying congratulations mr k-ray may your work inspire a new generation of those who wish to pursue greatness and goodness in all they aspire to accomplish thank you thank you thank you president bowman and thank you president ryan uh it is my great honor to present francis curray founder and principal of corey architecture and the curry foundation as the 2021 recipient of the thomas jefferson foundation medal in architecture francis curray received the prestigious aga khan award for architecture in 2004 for his first ever completed work of architecture the gondo

primary school in burkina faso africa from where he originates this building which was carrie's professional degree project for the taiyu in berlin was recognized not only for the exceptional quality of its design its material and tectonic innovation and its fine craftsmanship but more importantly for the ways in which global knowledge and expertise in the technological environmental and aesthetic realms are subtly intertwined with and elevated by the deep cultural histories of a place as these are embodied within and through the making of architecture with and by the communities that they support understanding the social political and

economic complexities of our relationship with the built environment carray's model of engagement is an exemplar for our disciplines his studios works which have brought architecture to communities considered to be among the world's poorest by global economic standards yet by far the richest in terms of their connectivity to their indigenous histories and landscapes return the significance of architecture to the place and earth from which it evolved while inversely expanding the cultural production of our discipline by bringing the voices of africa past present and future to the world these works sublimate our everyday rituals and communicate our

values through making while imbuing our fields with a profound form of beauty meaning and integrity in the last two decades francisca has gone on to become one of the world's most distinguished of contemporary architects with projects constructed on four continents africa asia europe and the u.s the recipient of the global award for sustainable architecture the global affairs holstein gold award the prince klaus laureate award and the arnold bruner memorial prize in architecture from the american academy of arts and letters francis correa has built a highly significant and award-winning international practice grounded in the local geographies

material resources and living cultural histories of the communities with which he works as thomas jefferson had aspired to inculcate the dual ambition of a citizen democracy and a model of public education with the building of uva's academical village carray's originary works in the village of gondo which include a primary school secondary school school extension library and teachers housing as well as his lyse shores secondary school in kudugu not only taught the world that architecture and education are for everyone but also exemplified how architecture can build strength and capacity in communities can foster environmental and cultural

resilience and inspire creativity while immeasurably serving the public good corey's works are a testament to the rich potentials of our symbolic poetic and experiential material mediums grounded in the specificity of their sites yet living in an extending meaning to a world that exists far beyond the immediate location and temporality of their inception integrating what is ancient and rooted with the contemporary and the highly inventive cares practice which extends from smaller scale installations such as the serpentine pavilion in london and the xylem pavilion for the tippid rise art center in montana has attracted the attention of

a vast international audience corey understands the ways in which the most compelling architecture is authentically expressive yet exceeds individual authorship as it becomes a vehicle for the highest aspirations of communities and cultures his inspirational project for the benin national assembly in puerto nova evokes the values of democracy and the cultural identity of its citizenry while being emblematic of our collective need for architecture to be a model for inclusive excellence and an embodiment of social justice few contemporary architects have had the capacity to have have such a global a significant global impact while retaining the most

intimate and cherished relationships between people their voices and the places to which they are tethered on behalf of the school of architecture it is my profound and great privilege to introduce francis correa the 2021 recipient of the thomas jefferson foundation medal in architecture welcome francis thank you thank you very much thank you okay wow um and yeah i have to say it's for me and an honor that i cannot describe um let me say we're going through a very difficult time today too because of the pandemic um and then knowing that many many people are

suffering or people dies and suddenly you found yourself um connected with one of the most important awards for architecture then you know it's like for me uh i'm so greatly annoyed and happy but at the same time i'm thinking about our world you know um so i will tell you that uh myself i'm coming out from covet some of my office members will discover today on family member that i shall spend like two three weeks home tested positive by corona happily i'm here and i'm in very good form and i came back two days ago

from benin to be able to attend this great meeting um and in benin we had a launching of our uh very uh biggest project um and i did so so coming back because of internet uh being in africa internet is still instable in the 21st century you know in the time of high-speed internet you have to know that education is still um something that is not at the reach of many many people so i'm very very happy to be here and i'd like to tell you how great this honor is describing you that i came

to the profession of architecture uh to an unusual way you know i was born in a village of gando and my father or my family is part of the leading group of of the this village and i am the first son of my father into my father would just get letters from the government uh or from friends and then he will wait for weeks especially in the rainy season that someone will come along and then he will ask him to read the letter for him as the representative of the village out of this experience he

decided to send his firstborn his first son who is me to school i want to say to the student listening to us that it was not a privilege my father was not a privilege my father pass a couple of uh years ago and he left behind a bicycle um that i'm planning to keep you know to show you and to people to friends from where i am coming so it was not a privilege to send me it was a sacrifice and people laughed about this they were saying the chief of the village is stupid he's

sending his firstborn the only man he has to school instead of letting him help him to grow calm to fit the family so it was not a privilege but i am a privileged man today because of education because my father was clever enough to let me go you know so i was good at school maybe not maybe i wanted to escape the hard work uh in the in my guest family you know i had to work because i had to leave my family and stay by a guest family and i had to work hard and

maybe to escape this i tried to be good at school and suddenly i got a scholarship to go to germany to be trained as a carpenter and i just went to germany and when i arrived to germany i just said you know i am coming from burkina faso there is no wood but i was happy to attend education and i just uh i was trained as a carpenter but there is no wood in burkina faso so i want to do more especially if you arrive in germany and you see how much opportunities is given then

i wanted to do more i wanted to know how to how you layer breaks how you make a roof of a house and they said oh for this you need to study okay i want to study but how are you going to study how are you going to survive because you need resources i said i have two hands and 10 fingers i can't work but you need a working permit so i fought and they allowed me to study and do my high school degree in the school in in in berlin it's called peter r silverman

school where i did my high school degree at night working during the day and i did it and to study architecture so this is how i came to architecture but because coming from a very strong community which survival is depending of the support every single member of the community you know i was out i couldn't support my family and when i had time to go back i didn't have either enough present to give to everyone so starting to study architecture i wanted to make a big gift to my family i wanted to create a school

and i did it while still being a student and to honestly tell you i wanted to support my family but doing so i made to myself the biggest gift you can have if i am awarded today thomas jefferson award it is because i try to give something to my people it is all about it it is all about education i wanted to give a chance to many other kids in my village and so today i am a very happy happy happy medalist of the thomas jefferson um uh midair and you know what is written today

and now that uh kai uber is here and i will tell him it is written in the german newspaper der spiegel uh fiona just sent me fiona's working for me she just sent me this paper where is written about me receiving the award dear spiegel is one of the weakly important newspaper in germany and they wrote the the first recipient it is coming from the school of virginia and the first recipient is miss van der rohe and then they also said gary receive it by reading and i discovered they wrote moneo they just said these

three names you know if you're coming from a little village like i am coming from and in germany you see your name put together with miss van der rohe who is my greatest hero and then of course i love gary and money is incredible and all the other winners i don't even try to think about that to just take the pressure what is going through my head now but i want to tell you i am it is a great great honor for me and i hope i will be able to show to the student and

uh um the the faculty member of the virginia university um what is the reason why i got and what is my passion first of all i want to thank all of you i want to thank the jefferson family foundation um for awaiting me i want to thank the jury that has choosing me and everyone who directly or indirectly contributed to this great success um of course thanks to the virginia school and as a promise i will come when there is no more corona and i hope soon um lastly thank you for the your kind word

uh mr president uh thank you for your very warm word uh uh ella so thank you for all the advices all of our conversation you know you know i am a very very happy man today because of all of that let me try to share my screen and i hope you can see my screen can you see my screen for sure okay this is the place where i was born can you can you try to click on full screen okay can you see it you're full screen yes yeah okay this is the village where i

was born this is the compound of my family i was born here maybe the compound is 100 years old maybe 150 maybe 200 no one knows exactly um this is an african compound it's never stopped to grow and it doesn't disappear it grows and shrinks when there is a need and there i was born and talking about architecture it's very simple for generation people being using math to construct it's easy to do and the knowledge how do you teach to build is being passed uh from older generation to the younger generation by watching so it

takes you a lot of time to learn how to build is a lifelong learning and people in modern time are rejecting clay construction because it's not standing the weathering so rain is destroying the construction so people are rejecting that kind of construction um is one thing and there's another thing that is fascinating to me uh that is a picture uh from a mosque in a tambuktu how people come together to fix the mosque in the during the yearly repair or a periodical repair i love this because it's made by the community what i wanted to

do i want i don't want to say i had a big dream that is like too much i simply wanted to contribute to my community in creating a school in a village and the thing being how you really learn you learn following the community the oldest community member and to learn to do something but not now suddenly francis come back from germany after a journey of three years and now uh or a little bit more and now he is claiming to be able to const to build a school no one believed that i could do

it because they haven't seen me following the builder in the village to learn how to build and i had to explain and it is me the one in the middle and you can see all the old older people looking some of these people has a family member of 100 or even more people every single one here it was like a a very important event and i had to convince them what i did is to introduce a so-called low-cost technology it is a mix cement with clay here now in modern time where you just compress the

clay blocks to become very regular and with this they call it compact clay bro blocks or compliment in french and you just press them and they dry protect it not in the sun you protect them and then you could use them to build and here you know when i was a student i had no money you know i had to create the foundation to raise the money to build and then to convince the community member to join me to build a school as you can see here all these old people with bad you know bearing

a bear they're old and they believe it in what i'm going to do before they did and i had to explain them and then the women you will see women carrying also stone together to create foundation it help us save money that i didn't have that time you know uh but to build so this is the way how we build it um it looks easy but it was a very very engaged and intense um um event you know i had to convince and so we made it and we have a classroom with uh um clay

bricks ceilings and then a classroom that is well ventilated where it's pledging to learn and to teach and then to compare to the old system where you had a um a metal shading roof and where it's getting hot you have like very bright well-cooled classrooms that are created what i applied was is a very simple system call it the venturi system i will tell you i have a double roof system that you can see here that is the protective roof skin and then in the middle inside to top to close the box of the classroom

a perforated um ceiling allowing the air to circulate and so it it act as a an air con i mean if you are in the u.s and someone is telling you to leave 42 degree in the sun and inside to how 37 is like a fridge you will laugh but you have to experience this you have to grow up like i did it sitting in a classroom where it can be 50 degree outside and you sit with 100 other kids other people's then you understand that that what you see in front of you is absolutely

luxury that's what i did for my community and then dear student faculty members friend and fan of the jefferson thomas jefferson foundation you know how do you explain you know engineering you know or architecture or drawing to people who are neither able to read nor write you know what i do is to create a mock-up like this one and i jump on the middle to show to my people look at it is working it's it's not magic but it's working it's engineering we can learn it we can do it and so everyone followed and with

that kind of of techniques we could create already the extension building of the school because we built for 100 kids it and later than two years two years we had more than three to four hundred kids that wanted to attend classrooms we had to keep building um and that is it so i want to allow myself to explain to the student the rule of colors in africa we love color really in the in the real area we love it and here you know when we built the first school we had one protective color to protect

the windows against coercion and then suddenly we have like everyone get excited and say let's inform francis that we want to have different color in the classrooms and you try to put the pattern to check what mess what fit together you know i studied in germany and now the color study of goethe you know johan wolf johann goethe who did a color study and i'm standing talking about color to three people but then after half an hour i had like 20 people trying to talk about color can you imagine what happened after two hours the

entire village was there talking about color but what i do i just i just live i go back to germany to fight to raise funds and then i came back i will found a color and sometimes you get you know because you were educated you want to talk and say why you did it like this but before you start to complain you will see the people full of enthusiasm telling you how they afford to get the building be like that and you realize you're building for a community you're creating a frame for them to play

and it's a pleasure to discover this that is that is the thing that is supporting my work that giving me energy the enthusiasm of people so okay and then we have a classroom now we have a vault and then with that kind of approach i have to confess i was very successful let's say we were very successful me and my village because people become aware about our work and people start to ask are you able to do the same in another area for us are you capable to support us uh can you do it so

we started and i was able to do as you will see here one of the major projects that we did after gandu are a clinical the clinic is um a project from a german region he wanted to apply and volunteer and work for a doctor without border medicine some frontier but he has not enough holidays to stay longer than three months and he started to travel regularly to burkina in his uh eastern holidays and just to provide uh you know um services to the underserved part of communities and this way he met me and asking

me if i will help him to create a clinic of course i agree briefly talking um you know in the center you see the clinic itself which has growing from an operation block um you know to now a maternity and then on the right side you have like a doctor housing for doctors that are coming from around africa but also europe to just support this initiative and here is like the structure that you can see in leo close to the border of ghana um um on in front you have the clinic you have roofs with

solar panels you have the dome for for for the doctors is a a structure that work in itself it's not connected to the to the grid because we have solar panels um here just to show you it's looked like an oasis in this city as you can see thanks to ivan baum that was like uh five weeks ago with me in burkina who was able to get this picture that i'm showing you and that is it you have like a very simple metal sheet that we use and then on the top you can put solar

panels very easily and then it is shaping and it works using clay from [Music] around not far and then you create it with mart a clinic where people get fixed while the kids are playing outside very happily you know why this picture is important dear student in in in west africa in my place health care is connected hospitals clinics is connected to that people don't go they go because it's too late and so often people die and if you go and you strong you may come back with a stronger disease because it's not clean now

you understand why this clinic is so important and i made it out of clay very simple matt and that is what you have in burkina it has become one of the most admired clinic in in this part of the country you know and for the doctor housing and the interests started to grow people asking to join him to join uh roon star professor room start to provide services so we needed to create housing for them to stay on in the in the clinic and just um provide the services what i wanted to do here is

to learn from the vernacular to learn from how the people build a house especially from the size you can see these boxes you know they are the example people are now building to replace the round hat houses so my idea was to learn from these to create a sort of better boxes you know for the people when they come to the clinic to visit they will see it because hey in my country you love things that are modern that are fresh that are new so they won't they will come cities be inspired and my hope

was they will copy because it's very simple the size of a normal hub a little bit bigger but then inside is very cozy it's simple you know built out of clear bricks that looks inside clean and when there is no doctors they use it for patient so this way we happen to create a structure to support communities and to support a doctor who has a vision to provide services but has no infrastructure ga student dear faculty members dear friends i tell you this way of working leaded me to be connected with the serpentine here is

the story i was rushing trying to go to burkina faso to fix a problem uh you know to start a new project at that time i had a an assistant named adriana from montana and adriana um was supporting me trying mainly to coach the office but also to improve my english so we got the letter i ignore it hey i ignore it why because i never saw myself connected to serpentine and i even never had the chance to visit it it was something out of my reach so i went to burkina faso upon london i

got a call from adriana francis we got a call from serpentine they're wondering why you're not replying and i say because it's not me you know it's like a joke they said no no you have to come back it's true you have to present um a sketch you have to present a concept they want you seriously okay let me finish i just finished in six hours what i had to do in retina looking for another flight and i came to berlin and what i did is to sketch try to summarize how community is living what

is the gathering space and i did it and we submitted and to my surprise i love it the idea that i had okay i get i get shocked really these people want to have me okay let's try to do the best they said you can't do more make more we want to see more okay we went with the support of my office you know inspired by the by the traditional brics work at the serpentine galleries i wanted to just create a sort of brick work but stop break heavy in london serpent galleries very expensive you

can do it the schedule for serpentine is very tight you know to everyone listening especially the student i tell you something a secret i am warning you if they call you one day to do the serpentine that will be an extreme experience you will you you will be going through it is incredible very intense very very intense and complex but i tell you you should do it that is the big chance they are supportive there but they're demanding i tell you you will collapse almost but you know i i'll survive and look at what we

did so for me when i have a new job i try to do big mock-ups to convince myself that i know what it is before convincing the client if you are not sure about your idea how can you convince someone drawings are good mock-up are great bigger mock-ups are even better to just understand ideas that's what i'm doing and first with the sheet material this is a cardboard i will not do this tomorrow today again because of sustainability but that was the easiest way to do it and after we were sure that we will make

it we go over to used wood and i love indigo blue i don't want to talk about it now but blue is an important culture a color in my culture and i wanted to show myself with my best color in london and so we had to do a component that you prefabricated and to be able to install them very easily and so here is the serpentine pavilion 2017 uh like in contrast to the to the structure one story um shima was an architect for me it was like again part of these people that i see

in the sky you know and you know what happened i was in this this balcony here topped with hans albrecht david ajay and sashima here standing to look my pavilion growing i couldn't believe it you know i couldn't believe it but it's true you know so this is my life and then that is a sort of ufo it is people will tell me talk say that is engineering that is a lot i love to do what i do and if i have support i try to push things up to the boundary and that is it

is what we created it was a huge funnel to collect water you know and to say you know london is part of the richest uh cities in the world but if i have a chance to work there i will just say hey guys even being that you're very rich we have to care for the resources let's collect the water and to demonstrate and this is part of architecture we have to always try to find new ways and then we could encourage other people to collect water and grow trees that was the use idea and that

is it i wanted people to lend back to use the pavilion like it is and they're just to come and you see people coming to enjoy themselves very simple really like here they even didn't care about the architect they was enjoying themselves and this is what i wanted to have it's not about me it is about people is about how you educate it how you pass on a message using a simple material what you see is wood and what you see in front is a part of it but it is uh for kids to slide

down already to create this was a big big issue what you don't know this is has become a model of a parliament house that i have designed for burkina faso the freedom our profession has is so incredible you know you have to have the passion and really you will find a way to use or to recycle ideas that you have so that is it um and then because we are in the u.s now i want to show you how i i made it from gandu to land in montana i was contacted by kathy and peter

holstadt it's a couple from the us and they're artists both peter is a poet a pianist but both are promoting music art literature and like their philanthropic great people and they just asked me francis we have an art center open-air art center and we want to ask you to contribute with the piece we want you to design a pavilion for our visitor after a long hiking journey they should stay there enjoy the nature and themselves or just relax okay i went to montana to check that is the pavilion finish i went to czech and then

again i tried to learn from my culture here from the taguna a tuguna is a landmark in the dagon country really um and this the gun lane is between burkina faso and and mali and people build this is a um is a structure for peace is a structure to relax is a structure where you can teach it especially law to allow people not to enter by standing because some people may be aggressive if you have a conflict you go lower in the position you cannot be aggressive so i wanted to learn from this but to

use the positive thing to get people relaxed you know after a hiking day through the monumental landscape of montana and then i start with sketches um it is like in this sketch you can read it's written like river i didn't know the name of a creek that time it is a little creek that you will see i wanted people to sit and i just wrote the river you know today sometime if i'm looking to think that i'm doing yesterday i feel a little bit ashamed because you know i'm missing some time my word you know

very simple that is it but i have the passion to create i have the passion to look at what is around what can i do with it here i wanted people to sit watch the sunset or just to listen to the quick and to relax or to climb up and watch the panoramic or again you know two lovers a couple can stay or a family and watch the sunset that was my idea and then okay student i also use renders i have an office and we try everything we can to convince people and here we

wanted to use wood you know i went to montana and i saw this massive forest with debt that dead forest and wood and you know i just say hey that is the paradise i want to use this wood to create the the the pavilion and then my client and with his team was very supportive that make me travel around montana and it is amazing what you can find there and then we decided to just use it and it's a mispronounces wrong is a large pole that they call it that told me that the native was

using these to build a housing and then it is nowadays used just for paper and i say okay let's use it for pavilion and what we did is even with very simple tools like i will do in gandu to take away the skin to prepare the wood and then to build in montana the student and everyone is not easy you have a very rough winter and then a very strong summer and short so you have to anticipate you know you have to find a way to pre-fabricate it a strategy we had very good build-up and

also like uh one of part of the builder is chris and laura laura is a harvard graduate and then her husband is a carpenter an incredible team really and together we could just do this we we prefabricated the component in a workshop where a lot of young people applies to work and i found myself surprised in the us that young people came to tell me how proud proud they have been to be able to contribute it and wanted to come with me to burkina and keep working with me it is amazing you know what you

you make through your work what kind of great people and so again here's nina nina thank you for this smile nina was in charge with the project with me she was working with me um and then we had to check everything that we're doing like the serpentine we have to just check you know to be able to tell to the client this is what i want it's going to work and chris made it that is a workshop of chris um a laura and that is the result there so to give a new life to wood

and we call it xylem so it's maybe i allowed myself to say you know i feel if the work is done and you have a name you should not feel ashamed to say it we call it xylem xylem is the nutrition core of a tree you know and then if you cut it there is no more but if you use the trees as the sitting that you can see here and then you have like a canopy made of the same wood we're thinking the human being will reconnect the material that has been used and then

you create a cycle again of life you know to connect yourself with nature and i love i like this i love this name very much the great thing that happened to me there is to gather with kathy and peter by their team amazing team but also you see these gentlemen from far away standing there is a cowboy you know i mean i have seen cowboys real cowboys through movies everyone knows them and i was there there was truly true cowboys and one of them said it in a very strong accent i have a sort of

a forest he said i cannot imitate it but i loved his accent he said i have a forest with so many trees like this now i know how i can use them i was proud it seemed that i contributed to make this community aware about what they have you know that no one has thought about it um you know before it was great and that is the pavilion is melting with the landscape in winter time is the same you know it's part of it and then you see the wonderful creek that i was talking about

it still have water in the summer time um and then you know that is it it was even bigger we had a romantic bridge that just spanned over the creek but due to time we had to scale it and later at the bridge and i was happy that i accepted this idea to say let's do it because it opened 2019 but you know what happened 2020 corona was there and so you couldn't open it if we haven't built it so a successful story yeah i am doing a lot of projects and even some in the

us but i love to bring you back to burkina faso and here i will talk about this project and even show deeper what i'm doing lisa shorter and vit campus so to show you how a project can evolve over time a couple a german couple discovered my work and they told me they have been supporting people in burkina faso if i will accept to build a school for them okay i say okay let's see and then i wanted to see the site they had a site and i was sent to just visit the site what

i found is this site and you see what it is the community gave it to them because if the least fertile place piece of land that the community it okay you cannot grow corn on it oh we just give it to them i went to see i saw it and i was corrupted let me tell you the truth i was corrupted when i arrived the oldest came to welcome me with chicken and with enthusiasm okay and dear son help us to have this infrastructure we needed it they said it the way that i was like

wow okay it's like about love you know and then i fell in love with the place because i know we we want to create something that is urgently needed i went back to say to the to the partner yes it's a good piece of land but after we just built and they came they already saw and said oh so there is no trees there is nothing i said yes i'm sorry but i couldn't say no because they needed this infrastructure okay let go that is the side and then that is the site today you can

see here we have solar panel you have the the school charge high school that we build it we have a basketball and volleyball and then we have a soccer play place you have a tower and you have the uh the it okay but here first this code it is an open plot that is not tree trees what i wanted to do is to create a sort of compound compound-like structure so to create a place of recreation in the center which will protect the student against the wind especially the harmon the harmon wind is a very

hard swing coming from the desert so libya over burkina is really uh not a good win let's say it brings dust and everything so and then we put the classrooms like you can see i hope i will have the chance to be there with the student to show them that is one classroom on the back side you have a shaded area intimate space for this classroom and then the courier that can be shared or exposed to the other while the back side is intimate you know that is very briefly what it is um and here

in this project i wanted to improve the ventilation system that i have been applying in my architecture in gando i wanted to create a wind tower okay let's go let's do it and so i wanted to use laterite lateral like clay is a traditional construction material but rejected by the people because it's not modern concrete is modern glass is modern but we have no money to use glass or to use concrete but we want to have a bigger building let's use what we have the most later right what i did is just to use this

project also to improve the quality of the material here that is how people extract the latter traditionally really and what you see is not the building is this the query and then i introduce a cutting machine so my people can cut the the material the the raw lateral redstone you know cutting it it become modern because it's regular there is one element the later rates would i wanted to use um bristoli let's say for the first time very intense using material here would but burkina has no wood that is the way you bring wood from

ghana all the agricultural king of house very long way and then it can uh this form you know it's not like straight at all and it's expensive but we have a special ecologist that has become a local space here now if you cut it on the bottom you know if you cut it on the very bottom then new branches are growing very straight people cut them to use them for temporary shelter or for scaffolding in construction business i wanted to give them a better use a better function so what i did we harvested them and

they came to the site my construction some of my construction sites look like a bazaar here you have women you remember at the beginning people ask me what you have done in your village will you be able to do it in our village this place is 500 kilometers far from gando kudugu the city and then these are women living around the site they came to help do the construction and they get paid okay and this is the wood the women will sit and send the wood they will fight to have a bunch of them you

see like everyone has his his his his block and they will sit together and send them almost like spiritual really spiritual like they're doing it and then i'll show you very quick how the high school look like today that is what you see and that is inside you see the courier in front of every class the group of the class can gather and then you have outside this sort of bracelet giving a second skin which will filter the sun and inside you have the kids the student can sit like here to eat and they bench

themselves the benches themselves are built using the leftover from the facade really you can see it today i don't want to go deeper but i want to just show you what i'm doing what is my passion you know so and then the classes are like bright and cool and you see there is no need to tell you that that like is a funny business to learn and teaching in a class like this you see them is really happy you know so but i was telling you i was called to build a high school and here

is the site nowaday after having built a high school the client was on holidays in the us i think they was visiting mit and then they came back and the u.s in general they came back very excited and i got a call uh no they text me francis me and my family we have a vision we want to create an i.t school in burkina faso we want to provide i.t education in burkina faso we want it to be the best in the country this is the way you can help this country to develop very fast

okay a great idea hey i am an architect i love climbing like this with a vision but then they said we will start just with one classroom remember the site that i describe it to you you know it's sandy there is no trees you want to put a classroom i told them in the desert you know the effort you will put to protect this i mean is not and i was disappointed that i didn't like the vision and they wrote me she wrote me the wife suzanne wrote me a very long letter and to say

you know we was thinking you love our vision i said yes the vision is good but the quantity is not one classroom in bukina for something like i.t is not enough let's do more so we started to do five classes so again we went on construction this time i've developed a strategy a cluster how an idea how we can build classroom after one if there is a need and if the financial means our resources are available okay very simple here an idea of a courier here an idea of how you ventilated the classroom and then

how you just get you know the hot air escape that was the ideas behind this project uh using an inclined roof system and a very it's look like complex but it's very simple really simple but at the same time there is a sort of sophistication inside um that i will try to show you here you have like classrooms advancing to each other and then here you have an auditorium putting two class together and left the middle wall away and you have a auditorium for 100 or 200 depending on the needs that was the strategy and

for this i t now i wanted to apply another system i didn't want to use bricks but i also didn't want to use later right i wanted to pour clay like you will do concrete you know like one block and i did a lot of tests and with the client we decided to make a form that is good enough for one entire classroom and so when there is a need for a classroom we just put them in place and my team will poor while i will be traveling or teaching or you know looking for other

ideas that was the the primary idea and then you have a team i think that i forget to tell you that i have to train my people so in these people in this group of people you see that some are from ghana now that we've successful the people that have trained are traveling according and to recruit new members and train them so from side to side my team is growing i think that i have more than 250 people i don't know exactly but if you count the women helping us it's enormous it's a lot of

people so before the lecture i asked to send me pictures from every site of a group of people i got them but as fiona know it was late i couldn't just put them inside i wanted just to show you how many people are working while i'm talking to you but however you see the idea one classroom is getting to be ready and another one is getting too poor while you pouring concrete to create the basement for the next double classroom that was this idea and then there is no factory we're doing everything on site i

have a big team that is a big big advantage and but it cost me a lot of time to to create this structure i have carpenter i have welder i have meshing i have people that can't deal with concrete i have people that can do everything so we do everything you know why if you come with sketches in buchina faso people understand but they will go back and do it the same way they used to do so this way there is no innovation it's very difficult to tell a company to build it differently so i

decided to create my own team i don't know how to call them but they are incredible and they understand what you want and they're open for you know new things so here just to show you how we put the element together you see this curve underneath you know of these and here this is where we just put the ceiling afterward okay and so that is one double classroom finish and this is the project and you see already that the site is getting greener in comparison to the outside i hope you can see this better than

i do and coming closer i couldn't just show you how but you see all of these in parallel to the construction i am planting trees and that is one of the element that you don't see but it is important to work so you create shadow for the generation to come and to protect the site okay there is a long story about this tower that now just pop up in the center of internet i don't know how to explain it to you but from the beginning the client wanted to have the student access the world and

you need internet it's not easy in burkina it's not at all easy so we at the beginning we bought some cell phone with internet that can access internet so in some of the classes they had laptop the student can go online to listen first let's teach the teachers but it was not good enough we decided to put another system based on satellite and it was still not good enough but when the idea came with the i.t we needed more internet and then we had on the back you don't see it a water tower and they

decided to put an antenna on the top of that to get more internet it was not high enough and i wanted to put now where you see this tower to put a metal structure like you see everywhere in burkina faso or in west africa to put a better antenna on the very top and i said no we cannot do so i have an idea let's create a bigger water tank a higher water tank let's create two story buildings for offices for the teachers and then on the top workshops and then on the top you have

an open air access you know i just use this opportunity to build a a multiple story building with my team so we are our network is growing we are learning and we did it and that is what you can see it's high on the very top we have like the antenna you see that is this element on the very top now we have internet really i can't tell you that is the best place in burkina faso where you have better internet except if you're in the american embassy of similar countries okay so benches sittings we

do everything by ourselves if you want to buy it like very cheap it break and so we're doing everything to buy ourselves everything like here and that is like one of the so a technician and then one of the welder trying and my team just sent me the pictures to say they are ready and that is the project that is the it the brt and then the leftover are used to create these structures so the trees are growing kids try to sit around them and that is how you just create it and then you see

the structure very simple you can see the neighborhood growing to encroach and crush our site you have the shutter providing filtering the light you have the courtyard inside [Music] you have the plank that was used for other work that we just recycled to do the this element these are openings you know we know how to do that i came to architecture but teaching myself how to build you know and so that is like a shaded nice area for performance for gathering for just being together and there's a classroom i think even barn or jaime took

this picture five weeks ago i was in the classroom i don't know how to say it in english but there is a i said saying naran freiheit in germany it's mean i am the one that is allowed to say you know stupid things in in the classroom because in burkina faso i'm happy to tell you that i have become a noun person i am still like i am i'm working hard and if people meet me and they say this is the architect when i started to do architecture no one knows the word of very few

people use the word of architecture really architecture was considered to be something like for big corporation for government far from to the people you watch it you better watch it from far and what i'm doing is simple people can see it and get excited and people talking about me they know my face in tv the student news me the show that i started to put a foundation and suddenly they have this structure i'm allowed to say stupid things in front of them that way if you look at to them they're just happy but i'm using

a way a stupid way to push them to say to them hey education is that it is that what we need to grow you know that is what is needed grabs it you have a chance to have a structure like this go ahead so every time i have the chance i will do that if i'm not checking construction and here you have a ceiling you can see what these pictures is to show you how light is entering and then you see it's is transparent the hot air will just escape out of the building very simple

you have a lamellar windows that i showed you before and the air is entering from the from the bottom and it's just well ventilated if it's getting too hot we have fan and we have solar panels we have a solar power that is the house the tower is still growing and then you see these like kids are playing enjoying themselves and then at night you have light and allowed me to say education is the best light you can give to underserved groups of people i would have stopped my presentation here but i want to allow

myself to just show you what direction is keep going and saying coming soon i wanted to show you a couple of projects coming but i will just start by one project and now jefferson was a thinker a writer uh a state uh builder uh and one of the founding father of the u.s so a father of democracy let's say this so that's why i want to show you the last project that is coming shown is the parliament house that i wanted to say uh you know every time when i have a chance to do something

i try to find something that is good to myself that i love is here to go back to learn from very vernacular or from the tradition if you have a parliament house the way we have parliament house in africa we we want to copy the west but we ignore the foundation of those kind of democracies here these pictures this picture is showing you the basement of african democracy that is a big tree everyone come to see to gather together it may be a school it may be a hospital it may be everything but people gather

together and face to face you make decisions this is africa this is the place where i grow it can be a baobab tree it can be a tree like this one it can't be anything everything but that is a symbol of democracy it is called abraham literally translated the three under which you discuss to take decisions i propose these provoking i just said about but the decision maker in benin was impressed by the name and by my sketches here come the problem you have a big dream i want i'm inspired by a tree to create

a parliament house a parliament house today is something very modern it need techniques it needs a lot of things you happy if your sketch was already big and sim and strong enough but then i got inspired by the trunk of these trees that you can see because our side is adjacent to a botanic garden so the idea was to create within this landscape the biggest tree in this in a park and this is our project and honestly uh last year we had a an intern that was making a mock-up of the emmy cycle this is

like a a a a a debate hole and inside the debate hall you could put all the projects that we have been doing until now everything inside is a giant building for ourselves with a park nine nine hectare left you see a stadium and then you understand i started with small thing i'm doing very small thing like shares really and then uh i'm i am and then i have a chance to do something like this and then the the core of the project is a courtyard a green courier for ventilation to bring fresh air in

the inside the parliament house it helped reduce the cost of maintenance or offer of running costs like electricity and then that is the inspiration nowadays parliaments in africa are closed you know and then protected from the people i wanted the people to come inside the parliament house there was the idea to have a big big tree and then we wanted the people to sit and debate in under a big tree this was the dream and i hope we will be able to show you pictures already i want to say jefferson started as a politician as

a a father of a nation and ending to start to build schools a this man was clever he knew without education do you do you can do ever what you want but there will be no basement to support any ideas that you have being putting in place i think this is why he started with his 76 year to build schools to create the virginia uh the school of architecture also and many many other infrastructure i am sure that is the reason and i started to do it because i had to build a school in my

village in my case because there was no school in my village and i knew it is a period if your father your mother has to sit with the letter in the hand and wait for someone to come and read it for him for me this was not acceptable okay and allowed me to say you something while i was building my first school i built it already and we start to construct other infrastructure and older men came to talk to me you know and then the story is followed i have to concentrate myself to tell it

okay he came and told me that he is unhappy he know that his three kids are not coming to school because there was living five kilometers from gando which in africa it's already very far because you have wild animals and i told them there are lions and wild animals eating kids on the road you know and they don't care and he came to apologize for it but to tell me that what i'm doing is what our nation need to grow and he told me why i tell you my father would have to wait for someone

to come and read the letter that what i'm telling you happened to him he got a letter he has a son his first bone was working in the average coast in the rainy season he got the letter he got a letter okay and he put it rainy season is destroying all the roads that is no connection and he was waiting for someone to come and read the letter and when he arrived someone read the letter in the letter it was announced the death of his son and he didn't know about it he has to wait

for three months so education is so important education is so fundamental and let me end positive to say if you see me today being able to do that dear student if you see me today being able to do a serpentine pavilion being able to use you know wood from a dead forest in montana to create a beautiful pavilion that even cobble these rough strong people love it you know why it is because of education we have a reason to be positive in the u.s you have it it is still the dream for many many people

in other places you know if what i do what i have done is the reason why i got this award today believe me with more award or not i will keep doing what i love to do do architecture try to serve communities thank you very much thank you so much francis i know that if we were not in a virtual environment right now uh you would be hearing thunderous applause from from everyone and i hope maybe i can ask you to stop sharing your screen so that we can see everyone and we can open it

up to questions i'm gonna maybe start us off uh and then uh i'll move to ellen basket uh i say stop what will happen with it if you just stop screen sharing okay i'll try if i jump out i will join you again okay okay there you go perfect um so maybe i'll just start us off i mean uh it was an incredibly inspiring talk your work is absolutely phenomenal and of course one of the the greatest challenges for architecture is is how you bring together those things that are grounded and meaningful the sedimentation of

generations of traditions or the kind of acute uh individual experience of a place or a landscape with a contemporary form of practice the context that you were educated within germany and you've been of course blending or merging um this tradition and these experiences with western contemporary practice but through this you've developed a truly authentic voice and it's it's fascinating to me how it's developed over time and it's not a replication of imported models which is what we so often see which is happening across africa and of course around the world and and you you make

it of course seem so easy but we know it is absolutely not and and i was hoping that maybe you could talk a bit about how you how you are synthesizing these very different worlds um because you're not just reinventing architecture you've actually also recreated an entire process of making an industry a process an incredible choreography training an entire building community and there are many here i'm sure that have been asking the same questions of how to do these things that you were doing but within an entirely different context you know within the context of

cities across america or places that um that even though it's very different than the villages that you're working with in africa also don't have access uh you know to the kinds of things um that they would like to have in order to make architecture and make it meaningful and we are always dealing with this when we talk about you know how we engage communities to make them powerful so the question is what we can learn from you in this and how this might translate uh into into our cities here uh in the u.s yeah yeah

quite uh very important question um i think um i may use the word resilience here and also to say courage you know and then look at what is what can i do differently to achieve a result that fit the need that is not satisfied that is not um fit yet you know um and now is quite difficult but i want to say it's all about just starting you know to just to start and then um not to be not to give it not to give up very easily and just try to see how you can

do it differently and to make it happen i mean i mean in my case i want to honestly tell you the very first winner of my work is myself really you know um when i started the work i i i'm seeing pictures where my father come early in the morning to see us digging the basement or pulling before he go back home and sit and just look at and you know i was myself thinking it's just a school and i go back to germany and to finish to study after my professor peter professor peter haley

and professor uh gert got like two people that just pushed me to do i just wanted to do the school for my community and that is i was just under leave but now uh i was able to even do more and then the day at 2004 when i won the agar can i was like allowed to travel with my father and then the two of us were sat in an aircraft air france to fly from wagadugu to to paris and from paris to to delhi yeah into india and my father says it this they they

just giving do you this price and let us travel like this because you just we build you just build a school for us i said yes you know and you know i you know it's often so you don't know the reach of your action but the most important thing is to be resilient and to do it and i will encourage every single student to really try to seriously take what you're getting from teacher but try to see how you could just use the skill you're getting from the school that is a lot millions of people

waiting for your your talent your potential to be awake you know and yes and the world to give you a word you know it is i mean of course in um best developed country like the us we may say it is difficult uh but i don't think so u.s citizens are so engaged you know um and it's it's about um finding something that yourself you love to do you have a passion for it you know and if i'm thinking about the conver conversation with chris and laura or pete like the drake of the uh director

of the the the um tipped rice art center to see how enthusiastic everyone was to just help me because we have this idea how much so many young people it we didn't publish but people knew there was a project where they're collecting a lot of wood from a dead forest to give it another a new life and really that was interested i remember a young guy blonde and he came and he was part of the making and his parent was doing agriculture and he was impressed by the way i was considering trees and he has

to told me the story about about the tree that i had and you will just say only native can think that way about the tree and he was like fascinated and i loved it because he told me his father could fly and there was fly but then that he when he discovered what i was doing with tree and he just show how the parent behave with this tree i mean i was like wow hey we have the same passion you know we we you know we have the same desire we love the same things and

we love to connect with communities and do things that well i think that is everything is possible you have to find your way and that is where it's difficult and sometimes you need a master someone that guide you in my case i needed my father to say go and do it you know i allowed you to go to school other people was laughing and saying just let his kids go and then i had like at school i met good people that just really pushed me and then during my entire professional career meeting people that encouraged

me and now institutions like the thomas jefferson foundation and the virginia school that just you know awarding that the the effort i'm doing you know in boutina faso jefferson is now more than at uh president from the us because one guy from burkina faso it's francis won a jefferson award oh this is the founding father of the us so how come it are you doing policy no you doing architecture and they give him an award people start to just dream so that what happened to you guys if you really find what you love to do

and how you can just support you yeah even your own community yeah i think i'm talking too much i think if i don't know if you can learn something from me but i i think that is he's trying always to use what are we getting at school and try to find a way to apply it and don't don't just try to follow the mainstream you know try to think differently use things very differently you have seen my wood at the serpentine pavilion you know what happened westminster obliged every architect in my case i used wood

to stain and they will burn the wood to show to record like really the architect was there he is sure about what he's doing and that was the proof for which means so that is that is solid that is going to work because you have some things you cannot learn you cannot just explain it if it's different and so as tender under brahman supported by a calm and stage one is the builder fabricator and i was standing there and said wow i'm coming from gando now i designed this pavilion and you know westminster want the

architect to prove that his concept is working that is how you realize you are contributing to develop a profession but i had this in not in mind i just was enthusiastic to support my community and that's what i will give to everyone be enthusiastic you know especially now with corona we're struggling but there is a lot of potential a lot a lot i mean look at to me i wanted to use matt i use it and so that they say okay miss won it as the first one hey by the way i love the work

of miss it's the work of miss van der rohe that i was happy to to document in germany uh like he did a pavilion that many people doesn't know now it has become a sort of a foundation in in in berlin not not the not the national gallery it's a very tiny little building pavilion with with bricks i used to use it in in my lectures and i don't use it anymore so now to see that you get connected to a price that these big men get or to get connected to a founding father of

the us hey guys [Music] uh thank you uh francis i think we're going to open it up to a couple other questions um uh ellen are you able to unmute uh yourself yes but i have to apologize my dog might bark so thank you so much for that really inspiring talk um i listed oh ellen of course we'll ask a question i work in east africa and so i'm always thrilled the more african voices we get in the school so my question and so first of all thank you for a lot of what you've done

and i know you're going to see other questions about communities and engagement and training and those are fabulous i work in african cities and i was wondering one thing i'm struck with is that a lot of the great architecture i see that's taking place in places like kigali and some other cities is very institutional at schools it's hospitals and i was wondering what you think about what you might have learned through your work that might be scaled to deal with the housing crisis that africa is facing in its in its largest cities indeed the housing

crisis is going to increase seeing the growing number of people for the moment i have two projects that relate to that just for myself to contribute i have a different approach i have realized that it's not just about cities it's also about the rural in many many places the growth of city is due to migration people leaving their villages to go to the cities and i have a sort of idea like i call it the house of my mom the house of the village and the house of the city so and it's all is about

it it is about how it's not just a house it's about living and living means occupation all the time that i've been working i have been experiencing people struggling with their families from time to time they get their mom to the city to join them and then the man after the father dies and then the younger brother come and they can't find their way in the cities so and then i just started with the mom to say your mom want to stay in her place and have a quiet life so i have to create a

house that fit the need of a mom that's why i said my mom and he's already in construction this house will provide all the spaces needed by an african women um and then places where she can work where she can retry herself from the entire family and then i call it the house of the city or a house of a house of women then it's about these women now traveling to the city to stay with her her family what is needed to create a house that allowed a wife a woman that coming from a village

to be able to stay in a village in in in the city you know a little proper life uh now it leads what is the women doing in the village primarily they live from handcraft they live from agriculture in cities it's very difficult because there is no space for this that is a source of conflict i have seen many many people bringing mom back because she's not standing the city she goes to the village there is no food you have to send money that is conflict you bring her back the same with your brothers and

i think we have to really think both the same level to improve quality of life in villages through appropriate housing and infrastructure but then at the same time to think what is a house what do i need in the city you know so the way we just built is like to have like a huge people try to be to do multiple stories in africa people are used to the ground you know and even in the city we are in the city but we think about the village i think to solve this problem for the long

term we have to consider a city not not like a western structure i have to be careful is not rejecting the western model it is about job in the west you have industry everything is well organized in cities in africa substitution the economy is the leading informality is the leading factor if you don't want these people to end up in slum you know create a sort of cancer in this city structure we need to put this more in the focus that is what i myself trying to develop uh i have to agree and for the

moment so busy that this poetic idea i call it the house of my man because every man has a man you know it is not my physical mom it is about the cycle of life it is about how people move to the city what are they doing there do you create an appropriate job for them or you try to improve these life in the village i already have i have the project already designed and then it's just the two projects and then it just need to be done and then to scale up and see is

this could this be a solution to this problem of the urban growth you know the time i met i don't know if you can unmute yourself if you want to ask your question hi yes um just introduce myself i'm a university student from canada and i'm so inspired by you and i've been lucky enough to attend more than one of your lectures so thank you so much you're extremely inspiring not just as an architect but as a person in the world right now um uh and i my question is have there any been any smaller

projects that you've done in university or as a student um before building your uh school in gondo that encouraged you and um taught you anything if i have built little things before i started yeah like competitions or um no smaller projects actually i didn't say it you know when i started uh after two years i feel that i have accumulated enough information for me to go back to burkina faso this is part of the story that i never told um and it is actually my two professor peter hurley and then angry guts that told me

hey you have to you have to do yoga you have to graduate it i was looking to them hey guys you don't know africa why should i do a degree no one will hire me in burkina that is no architect you know office that would hire i just want to know how to build that what i wanted to do in germany i'll go back to work so this being after two years what i have done is to travel around germany really to really see things that are that you don't talk about in schools i travel

to really discover how they made breaks before the industrial time i think often this is what we are what you say you jump you you missing in in like in in africa uh we're coming straight ahead from a traditional way of making things and then we have like the modern the 21st century in our eyes how you make things you know so i wanted to see the p pre-industrial time how did i do things how did i make break how did i mix the clay you know until if i heard about the workshop i will

apply to go and do it if someone was doing like a um vault i will go to check it until i really i realized i knew what i wanted to do and i just went to do it but nowadays it's very important if you are in the school they they just do a sort of a build project you know i don't know if your school is providing something like that this is a good exercise to do myself i'm doing it with my student um trying to build little things really find every single occasion you have

you should do it you have to be ready to put your finger in the dirt in mud you know and that is the way you learn the best yeah are you happy yes thank you you're welcome i think margaret for hoodie i don't know if you want to ask your question yes for sure so first of all thank you so much for this amazing sharing i mean that was really inspiring and um i'm joining from canada as well and i'm a couple of years i'm kind of um giving up the designing in the studios and

offices and working with communities so that was really inspiring for me and my question is like so in the western part of the world we also uh we like to tack uh you know hug names to different approaches like saying community based approaches coming the led approaches they don't know participatory planning place making place keeping so this is a kind of a this side of the world approach to give the process a name and tag them to uh like define a kind of approach to them so i really appreciate that you haven't used any of

these words and you have your authentic way of doing so i'm wondering um when you are starting when you when you start a project uh from the get go uh would it be like that you would engage your uh the people that you are designing it or for at the ideation stage like what that space that the school would look like uh would they be the part of this uh the first get-go process that what that space can look like again you want to say um if i get people um like this engagement um where

you start event then through the process uh engaging people to the start would it be like that when you the idea come to you and you have the idea and you will share it with the people or you would uh you would have this uh like a place for others to also um bring their own ideas for example the students or those women that um were part of the project yeah no um yeah normally if i do a workshop with student normally what i do i have seen alberto who has been for a long time

my assistant i saw his name somehow here what i do i will just come with a student to burkina faso where we unfortunately unfortunately not able to go any more because of terrorism but normally and i will go again i'm trying to organize myself but what i will do i will arrive with the student and then so they some get nervous asking for here drawing for whatever i will not do that really and then we will arrive and if we arrive on the site mostly in my village what we will do at breakfast we will

have the breakfast and i will say guys i think we're here we want to learn how to build let's build something sometime the name will come from myself i may say a pavilion or we may start and then we start to divide ourselves in groups first of all i say no computer so and then we start to discuss about it and then we start to plead them in groups organization groups really and in that i have to hear confess i'm like really straight and then we happen in within less than four weeks we could build

structures really so we did the same in mozambique where we could just we built like a pavilion within three weeks and we you know there you do it with the student this is really good and then you it is amazing what you are able to do but we do everything by ourselves so the idea is growing in front of everyone and we discuss and even in berlin in real project i did a sort of a little shelter for refugees in the airport temple health and then this project was replicated and showed at the biennale in

venice a couple of years ago but if i have a client it depends what kind of client for example right now i designed a so-called world of school in um in a in a village in the in the little town close to munich you know the philosophy of the world of is participation it is the freedom it is a open mind to everything so the way to design schools there and then everyone participated even the the kids i mean for someone that is not used to that i mean it's time consuming very very difficult it

takes a lot of time i can't tell you um that is a said in germany they say participation is a is a word uh it costs a lot of time it brings nothing i will say is not true it's always bringing something um i i am afraid because i i'm trying to be uh intellectual and which is very dangerous i re i read once uh a sentence of for of uh muhsan musa favi former dean of harvard he says explicate is implicat it is even in the book you know if the way you explain explaining

things and everyone is in you have at the end a result everyone feel comfortable with the project everyone can't identify and identify themselves with the project really this is my own experience yeah so it's not time wasting it is like to make a project be you know to make a project be seeing as a common good this is important but i mean it's not easy it's not easy you know i mean here i mean i haven't won this prize it is something you cannot win twice so i can confess you that i'm going to live

very open um i have been i learned a lot through discussion with people and then i have learned a lot and i i'm not like someone that has the idea already no no no but it is like trying and discussing and drawing and checking and and again trying and trying and trying still it's worked so the discussion the discussions so i ca there's no principle but i mean every time when you have a chance to discuss your project this is the way you discuss the project the most you know yeah i am going i'm going

to give the last question uh to one of our students because i know uh you are many hours ahead of us in the middle of the night and staying up quite late in order to do this uh so omar garashi who's one of our uh students uh um graduating this year omar uh did you want to ask your question out loud oh yeah sure where are you uh i mean right now i'm here in charlottesville but um is it what time is it uh almost 7 p.m okay you know what time is it here it's

almost one o'clock in the morning but i still have energy because of all of you guys girl go ahead hi huh yeah so uh i'd actually been really interested in your project in sudan um the you know the railway uh royal bath uh shelter just because i mean at the moment uh for my thesis i've been actually looking at um uh the you know the chemicals yeah um because in my head you know originally began with some sort of like incremental housing project that it was you know out of like necessity i guess but in

my head it got to a point where i was like why is it when you know we think about you know countries in africa right or countries you know that you know the west coast developing or whatever right uh why is it we always have to think about things like that like you know necessity uh so the project has now shift shifted where it's like looking at a museum um so i mean like already the way you know you have your your project it's for me it's been very really interesting just seeing okay all this

you know laid out in this way where you know it actually feels like you know you're experiencing what was you know uh you know in the you know pyramids there before yeah and i don't know so i just i was very curious about the project and actually you know hearing about it from you yeah no yeah it's it's very exciting um so i want to tell you uh our continent has a lot of potential really i mean um and uh for me it was like it is a great chance to just do this project in

a in sudan um actually the project took so long um and now we had a problem with uh we know you know the shortest of and then the crisis that that we had actually last year i was there and i was planning not last year 2019 and i had to go to the us and i knew if you was in sudan it was not easy to go to to the u.s and then i i went i wanted to lie but i know that they have is because i got two passport two passport and i just

came and then they said okay um are you do you tell them the truth they may just ban you but you have to go to yale you know and to teach and i told them the truth they say you know it is a very exciting place i don't know what the politicians are like there are but is a is a rich place for humanity you know they found a bath which is dated more than 2 000 years ago you know and then i went i am i have been i want a competition and i have

to do that why i was there so actually to just tell you my enthusiasm but um it's a great place you know it's the place where they build the first pyramids that were harmful and a different way the egyptian one uh it's like it was the same you know the lower and upper nine uh are achieved but then their parameters is very different very exciting i went to visit them and i got inspired that way we just designed this shelter to protect this bath the way it is designed and actually the the the challenge being

on the site you're not allowed to come with with engine you're not allowed you have to do it like in the ancient time and it is really exciting uh hilar i mean you're still looking and everyone is looking can you imagine you have beams that weight uh 10 tons how do you lift this on the top of the building with no crate that is crane nothing is allowed so this place is a very exciting place and it's always what i'm trying to say is challenging for us um to see how you use your skills and

to learn from ancient time to come out with something that is modern because this this purpose of the shelter is to make it this bus and what we have found accessible to the sudanese people unto the world and is a unesco protected site that i'm working on last year not 2019 we was able to just go no no last year before the shutdown before the the before corona we was there to build a mockup like a little model to show to everyone and to uni unesco how we're going to build it it's taking time but

it's a very exciting experience we had like walls that are 60 centimeters thick a giant and then um void that are like 20 a 30 meter long um very exciting i think if you finish you're going to be our partner architect we have to get you down and help to make it happen yeah yeah i i mean um i didn't really answer i want to encourage you to just learn from it because you have a great uh tradition in sugar in sudan really remarkable to deal with scar city you know because of her of the

you know the the the um the policy situation where you have uh uh what you call it um this this there is a lot of shortage that is nothing but they have bricks they have people that has a tradition of using bricks it's a paradise for an architect but it's far away and not easy to reach thank you thank you francis and uh omar if you didn't uh realize that you were just offered a job so make sure you uh take francis up on it uh in the future um thank you again so much for

an incredibly inspirational talk and for sharing your work and we are going to uh take you up on the visit in the future to come potentially build something with us at uva when corona is done and i'm going to invite everyone to unmute yourselves and applaud uh and say thank you because uh it's a difficult world to do this in but thank you so much thank you thank you and and my friends uh ann la caton and then jean-philippe uh won the uh the prescott they went through uh virginia yeah and they went also in

africa you know they started their career in africa and every time we've been talking about africa so uh i will encourage every student just to go ahead just go go go and then find your way you know go but don't follow the flow find your way find your way thank you very much wonderful advice thank you fancies thank you so much