Arkitekter Uden Grænser

Udvikling, Arkitektur & Planlægning

Debate

Developing Architecture

A recent publication presenting five projects by Architects Without Borders Denmark in Sierra Leone. The book provides a backdrop of the organization’s development and capacity to onboard increasingly complex projects.

Project info
  • Location: Denmark
  • Year: 2013 - 2014
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The publication Developing Architecture – Learning from Sierra Leone reflects on Architects Without Borders Denmark’s work through the organization’s five projects in Sierra Leone. It illustrates the organization’s development which is highly characterized by an ad-hoc driven development, in which one project typically paves the way for another, and where the experiences gained from previous projects inform subsequent projects. It furthermore allows a newly founded organization to grow in line with the complexity of incoming tasks.

Wanting to shed light on the architectural as well as social anthropological aspects of each project, the editors behind the publication were driven by an ambition to showcase the conception of the five projects through multiple angles, perspectives, and voices. As a result, a publication divided into three overall themes ‘The Architect in a Foreign Culture’, ‘Managing Building Projects’, and ‘Icon Building for Social Change’, that draws parallels between the projects and the architectural profession in a general sense, about as well as at home.

In 2014, the publication was awarded the Danish architectural prize ‘Lille Arne’ for its contribution to emphasizing the role of architecture in humanitarian work.