Tosin Oshinówò on Designing Africa’s Future
From Design Emergency by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
July 1, 2025 · 39 min · Season 5 · Episode 7
About this episode
Tosin Oshinówò discusses how design and architecture can contribute to a sustainable future for Africa.
In this episode of Design Emergency podcast, the Nigerian architect, Tosin Oshinówò, tells our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, how design and architecture can help to forge a fairer, safer, more sustainable future for Africa. . One of the gifted young architects at the forefront of forging radical change in across the African continent, Tosin was born in Lagos and returned there after studying architecture and design in London and Madrid, to establish her practice, Oshinówò Studio. In her interview with Alice, Tosin describes how she has combined commercial projects with humanitarian endeavours, including a collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to design a resettlement village for displaced people returning to the Borno region after being forced to leave there by the Boko Haram insurgency. . As chief curator of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial in 2023 and as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University for the past year, Tosin has shared her vision of Africa’s future. She recently won a Special Mention at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennal for an installation based on her Loeb Fellowship research into the flourishing informal economy of markets in…
People in this episode
Host: Alice Rawsthorn
Guest: Tosin Oshinówò
Topics covered
- design
- architecture
- sustainability
- humanitarian efforts
- Africa's future
- urban development
Keywords
- Tosin Oshinówò
- design
- architecture
- Africa
- sustainability
- humanitarian
- urban development
- Oshinówò Studio
- UNDP
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Oshinówò Studio, United Nations Development Programme, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Harvard University
Places: Africa, Lagos, Borno, Nigeria, Madrid, London
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