By Akanni Dorcas

Kunle Adeyemi is a Nigerian architect, urbanist, and creative researcher who was born on April 7, 1976.

He founded and leads NLÉ, a firm specialising in architecture, design, and urbanism, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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Early Life of Kunle Adeyemi

Kunle Adeyemi grew up in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, and began his studies and career in Lagos. His father was a modernist architect and established one of the first indigenous architecture firms in northern Nigeria in the 1970s. When Adeyemi was a teenager, he designed his first house for a friend of his father.

He attended the Federal Government Academy in Suleja, a school for gifted students in Nigeria, and graduated with its inaugural class in 1992. He later studied architecture at the University of Lagos, where he graduated as the best student in his class. In 2005, Adeyemi earned a post-professional degree from Princeton University’s School of Architecture in New Jersey. While there, he worked with Peter Eisenman to study rapid urbanisation and the role of market economies in cities of the Global South, focusing on Lagos.

Work Life

One of Adeyemi’s most famous projects is the Makoko Floating School, a floating structure located in the Lagos lagoon. This project evolved into the Makoko Floating System (MFSTM), a prefabricated solution for building on water. It has been used in five countries across three continents. The Makoko Floating School is part of NLÉ’s “African Water Cities” initiative, which explores the connection between rapid urbanisation and climate change.

Before starting NLÉ, Kunlé Adeyemi worked for about nine years with Rem Koolhaas at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). He was involved in designing and developing several major projects. These included the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Tower in China, the Qatar National Library, the Qatar Foundation Headquarters in Doha, the Samsung Museum of Art, the Prada Transformer in Seoul, the 4th Mainland Bridge and Master Plan in Lagos, and others.

Kunlé Adeyemi was one of five members of the International Advisory Council for the World Design Capital 2014, hosted in Cape Town, South Africa. This global design event was to identify, support, and promote projects that show how design can improve lives, particularly in South Africa and across Africa.

In 2010, Adeyemi served as the creative director for Lagos Photo, Nigeria’s first public exhibition of contemporary photography, organised by the African Artists’ Foundation. Lagos Photo was an urban project that inspired and educated people about Lagos and other African cities by using photography displayed in public spaces. Adeyemi also wrote an article titled “The Architecture of Photography”, which was included in the Lagos Photo 2010 catalogue.

A key part of Adeyemi’s vision for urban development is the proposed 4th Mainland Bridge and Master Plan in Lagos State. He worked on this project with OMA for the Missing Link Motorway Development Company. This project has the potential to greatly improve daily life for millions of people in Lagos, one of the world’s largest and most complex cities.

Academic Contributions

Kunle Adeyemi has given lectures and led workshops at universities and conferences in Amsterdam, Zurich, Delft, and the Guggenheim. He has also written articles on architecture and urbanism.

In 2011, Adeyemi was the Callison Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the University of Washington’s Faculty of Architecture. He taught and researched “The Modern City in the Age of Globalisation in Chandigarh” with Dr. Vikramaditya Prakash. This position came after Glenn Murcutt’s tenure.

At the 2011 PICNIC creative conference, Adeyemi discussed the differences between organic urban growth and planned cities.

He has been a visiting critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in the U.S., the Architectural Association in London, and the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam.

His article, Urban Crawl, appeared in the LOG Journal (Summer/Fall 2007), exploring modern cities and the future of architecture.

In 2006, Adeyemi was a keynote speaker at the Guggenheim Symposium titled Contamination, Impure Architecture, alongside Zaha Hadid, Sanford Kwinter, and Alex McDowell.

In the same year, he taught at the Urban Body Studio at Delft University of Technology’s Faculty of Architecture.

Adeyemi has also worked with Architecture for Humanity as a competition juror and project reviewer.

In 2016, NLÉ received the Silver Lion Prize for the second version of the Makoko Floating School (MFS II — Waterfront Atlas) at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia. Other notable NLÉ projects include “A Prelude to The Shed” in New York, the Black Rhino Academy in Karatu, Tanzania, and the Serpentine Summer House in London’s Royal Kensington Gardens.

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