Mariam Kamara: The Latest Architecture and News

Looking back at 2022, last year had seen major female-led stories. Kimberly Dowdell was chosen as AIA’s First Black Woman President, Carol Ross Barney has received the 2023 AIA Gold Medal, Jeanne Gang won the 2023 Charlotte Perriand Award, Frida Escobedo was selected among the 100 Emerging Leaders by TIME 2022, Renée Gailhoustet was presented with the 2022 Royal Academy Architecture Prize, "Infinite Freedom, A World for a Feminist Democracy" opened at the 2022 Biennale of FRAC in France, and ArchDaily presented SkyFrame’s Women in Architecture’s documentary, following Toshiko Mori, Gabriela Carrillo and Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge, three architects in three different countries, in different contexts, at different stages of their life and career, but with a lot in common. And that's just to name a few...

After arguing in 2021 “why is it still important to talk about "female architects"? and contributing to “rebalancing forces and adjusting narratives” in 2022, for its 3rd edition of the annual International Women’s month coverage, ArchDaily will focus on the achievements of female architects working specifically on global challenges, and finding innovative approaches to the problems of today. Fitting partially with the theme selected by the United Nations for the 2023 International Women’s Day, centered on Innovation and technology for gender equality, ArchDaily will reflect on what is innovation in the face of global challenges.

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Architect Mariam Kamara—founder of Niamey, Niger-based firm Atelier Masōmī—is a contrarian of design pedagogy as it is largely practiced today. To Kamara, modern is not synonymous with European forms, architecture is not only for Westerners to define, and the so-called canon of great buildings actually ignores most of the built world. The Niger-based architect's rapidly growing practice informs a series of lectures she has delivered recently at MIT, Columbia University GSAPP, the African Futures Institute in Ghana, and Harvard GSD.

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A little less than two years after the onset of a global pandemic, inclusion in the architecture profession is unfortunately still a limited conversation. A 2020 survey by the UK’s Architects' Journal revealed a sobering amount of obstacles for Black architects in the UK, and in the United States, prominent Black practitioners such as Mabel O. Wilson of Studio & have questioned the Eurocentric nature of a large amount of architectural study.

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MAXXI Museum celebrates women in architecture in a new exhibition that documents the transformative role of female architects in the profession's evolution over the last century. Curated by Pippo Ciorra, Elena Motisi, Elena Tinacci, and with exhibition design by Matilde Cassani, Good News. Women in Architecture weaves together in four thematic sections the history of women in architecture, with the work of contemporary practitioners and the voices of young collectives, telling the stories of over eighty female architects.

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This article was made in partnership with Design Indaba, a website and annual festival that uncovers innovation for good. Click here to learn more about the annual event.

Niger-born architect Mariam Kamara shared how she is shifting perceptions of her home country at the 2019 Design Indaba Conference in Cape Town. Founder of the architecture and research firm atelier masōmī, Kamara was a software developer for several years before joining united4design, a global collective of architects working on projects in the U.S., Afghanistan and Niger. At the Design Indaba Conference, Miriam discusses her work and what it means to put people at the forefront of practice.

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Mariam Kamara is the founder and director of Atelier Masōmī in Niamey, Niger, an architecture firm whose interests lie in designing solutions relevant to spatial problems inherent in the developing world, in a cultural, historical and climatic way. She is a founding member of the united4design collaborative office in Seattle, where she worked on two major projects in West Africa. Her tenure as Associate Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Brown University began in the spring of 2017.

The Royal Academy has revealed the shortlist for their annual prize recognizing young talent in architecture, the Dorfman Award. The award is given to those "...reimagining the future of architecture and whose work demonstrates a high degree of sensitivity to local and global context." The 2019 shortlist comprises four emerging architects practicing across the globe.

This year's shortlisted designers/practices are: Fernanda Canales (Mexico), Alice Casey and Cian Duggan of TAKA Architects (Ireland), Mariam Kamara of Atelier Masomi (Niger), and Boonserm Premthada of Bangkok Project Studio (Thailand.) The jury for this year's prize included chair Alan Stanton, Louisa Hutton, Phyllida Barlow, Kirsty Wark, Lesley Lokko, and Richard Burdett. The winner will be announced later this year.

Rolex has announced four new mentors and protégés for the prestigious Rolex Arts Initiative. In the architecture category, Sir David Adjaye was selected as mentor and Niger-based architect Mariam Kamara will be his protégée in 2018-2019.