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.

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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.

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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 Lagos, which, she believes, could be scaled up to provide a sustainable local solution to Nigeria’s need for design and architectural innovation.

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We hope you’ll enjoy this episode. You can find images of the projects Tosin describes on our Instagram @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency when we will hear from inspiring global design leaders whose work is at the forefront of forging positive change.

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Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Recording and editing by Spiritland Creative.

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