LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD

Aim

A film documenting BFA's research into matriarchal and spatial practices on the African continent.

LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD

A film documenting BFA's research into matriarchal and spatial practices on the African continent.

Learning from the past and researching the present, our insights will inform our emerging practice, exploring an approach to designing and city making that is equitable, environmentally and socially sustainable.

What is BFA’s vision?

BFA are a community and growing network of over 500+ Black and black mixed heritage women in the Architecture, Design and Construction industries. 

Whilst nurturing the BFA community remains and will always be BFA’s priority, we want to engage with a range of partners and collaborators to deliver projects at various scales both in the UK and further afield. The ultimate aim is to facilitate the involvement of black women within the delivery of built projects towards a more equitable built environment. Projects could range from small scale interventions such as exhibition design and temporary pavilions to housing and wider involvement in regeneration masterplanning.

What is the ma research project?

We are initiating a research project that looks ‘back home’, exploring matriarchal, spatial practices on the African continent as a catalyst to establishing our own creative practice both in the UK and on the continent. We want to model an ethical and sustainable black female-led design practice that champions social and environmental value in every output. To this end, our research will seek out environmentally, socially and economically sustainable practices that can be implemented in the cities and urban contexts that define our everyday lives. 

Launching on Wednesday 20th March 2024, the project’s first phase will take place between 2024-25 and will consist of multiple elements outlined below. 

Timeline and Programme

• A rammed earth workshop in collaboration with Hive Earth. This workshop will take place in London. It will be an opportunity to explore the use of earth as a building material and as an application of the philosophy of learning from the past to inform future practices and innovations. (Sankofa) 
• A research trip to Dakar, Senegal taking place during the Dakar Biennale in May 2024. While in Dakar we will engage with practitioners primarily through interviews,  
• A film documenting our learnings from the trip. This will be our primary research output, archive our engagement with the people we meet, the spaces we experience, the practices we learn about and the cultures we encounter.
• Using the film as a stimulus, our members and wider community will be invited to respond to a brief inspired by our research in Dakar with work the produced shared at an exhibition taking place in November 2024.
• The research programme will culminate in a publication that will be released in early 2025. This will act as a permanent record of the year’s activities.

Alongside helping to define our creative practice, we hope for our work to contribute to wider discourse on matriarchal spatial practices on the continent with an emphasis on our unique lens as diasporan, female practitioners. 

This is work we are keen to share and intend for each element of the programme to produce an output (a workshop, a film, an exhibition, a publication) that will be accessible to you and the wider public.

How will we use the money raised?

At this stage, we are asking for your support to fund production of the film and we need your help raising £20,000 to put towards this.

Who are Black Females in Architecture?

Black Females in Architecture (BFA) is a social enterprise and membership network founded to connect and support black women within the architecture, design and construction industry. Through networking, advocacy, education and projects we serve our members, the industry and wider society, ensuring the contribution of black women to the built environment is recognised and valued. 

The organisation was formed in 2018 after a chance meeting between BFA’s founders at an Architecture Foundation event. A Whatsapp group chat was made after this meeting and over time, as they encountered and connected with other black women in the industry, the community swelled to 200 members in the space of a year. Since its inception, BFA has amassed a growing membership base of nearly 500 students, designers, and spatial practitioners with the network offering its members the support and community they have struggled to find elsewhere.

BFA is currently co-directed by Akua Danso (an experienced designer and registered architect at Gort Scott), Neba Sere (A spatial practitioner and lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture) and Selasi Setufe MBE (A senior project architect and Innovative Sites Manager at Be First Regeneration).

This project successfully funded on 30th April 2024