What’s your favourite building?

What’s your favourite building?
In Lagos?
In Nigeria?

How do people perceive Architecture and Design in Nigeria? Since January, calls have been made in The Guardian Life Magazine, (a supplement to the Sunday Guardian) for nominations for the best Design Person and the best Design Product for 2005. A few entries came in before the February 19 deadline but not enough to generate the sort of interest in design that was intended. Of the seven nominations received two of them are published here not as winning entries, but as samples while the others are listed for readers to see. So in essence, we don’t have a winner? Not yet, but things are about to get more exciting. Just read on.

Ceddi Plaza, Abuja.
Ceddi Plaza is a 20, 000m2 mixed use Retail Entertainment Centre, located next to FSB and a short distance from the Central Bank Headquarters in the Abuja CBD.

Taking its inspiration from the groundnut pyramids of the North, Ceddi Plaza looked to the past for inspiration, while being uncompromisingly 21st Century in language and aspiration. Ceddi will ensure that Abuja’s CDB does not just close down after office hours, by offering workers a choice of shopping, cinema, restaurants, gym and other leisure activities to wind down with.

Project Cost: $ 16 million
Designed By: Taiwo Aina, Managing Partner B+TIC
Project Architects: B+TIC

Ceddi Plaza courted a little controversy when it was initially wrongly credited as having been designed by the “white man” who served as Project Manager on this project.

Status: Completed and operational. Tenants include Nu Metro Cinema and Media Store.
- Yetunde Aina.



GTBank Lekki.

You were right on the money in the penultimate issue of Gaurdian Life as per Banks, Branches and Architecture, I'd always been perplexed with the Zenith phenomenon and enamoured with the GTB design ethos.

It's really nice to be able to look forward to design commentary, especially in Nigeria and of Nigeria!

Thanks for providing info on the particular Firm that got the Commission for GTB Lekki, I had been stumped for a while (I guess you now know which building is getting my nomination for "Best Design Product 2005", can't fill the slot for "Design Person" though, still giving it a thought).

More grease to your elbow!

God bless

-Yohana Bako

Unlike Yetunde Aina’s posting which was the only nomination that came with photographs and was packed with information to boot (not surprisingly, if she is related to Taiwo Aina, the designer) Yohana Bako’s posting simply expressed her enthusiasm for the GTBank branch in Lekki. Running into Goke Osibodu of MOE at an exhibition recently, we got talking and it came out that Plural House on Oyin Jolayemi Street in Victoria Island which currently serves as GTBank’s headquarters was not purpose built for the bank by MOE. It was just an office block that GTBank took over. That easily explains why Plural House pales beside some other GTBank branches especially the Lekki Branch which could easily be mistaken for their new head office building. The Lekki Branch which stands opposite Shoprite, the new shopping mall on the Lekki Expressway is designed to incorporate art like other branches but there is a space experience there that is central to the GTBank strategy which you must go there yourself to feel, Goke wouldn’t go beyond that. MOE had a tough time pushing their quirky roof (which can accommodate an extra floor internally without being dismantled) through with the client, but the bank’s eventual willingness to see how the designers’ idea would turn out has paid off in the long run with the likes of Yohana.

The other nominations that came in for Design Product of the Year for 2005 include:

*The Mike Adenuga Towers on Adeola Adeku Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. Nominated by Emma.
*The ‘Structure’ of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife?
*IBTC Place, Walter Carrington Crescent Victoria Island, Lagos.
*National Christian Center Abuja designed by Darchiworkgroup who also designed Olumo Rock Abeokuta. Nominated by Soji Adeyemi.
*Government House, Port-Harcourt, Rivers State by Late Arc. Cookey-Gam.

At a preliminary sitting, the Lagos Circle of Design Critics (an amorphous group of armchair critics) resolved that the nominations received within the stipulated time-frame were insufficient for a rigorous judging process. The group also realized that to do justice to the buildings nominated, a panel of judges would need to critically evaluate each building beyond just driving past them or studying photographs. The panel berated this writer for not thinking about these logistics before calling for nominations. Thus in encouraging more public discussion and participation in design matters, an internet blog spot is currently being developed to power interactive exchanges on these nominations and others that are expected to tumble in, in the next few weeks. Participants will have a chance to delete a particular building from the list which they do not find worthy (by stating the reasons they find the building drab) or to campaign for another which they want to win (by explaining what they find compelling about it) through blog postings and SMS entries. Blogging makes this process more worthwhile by providing architects, clients, builders, the general public and more importantly the users of the buildings a rare chance to air their views in real time and to react to other peoples’ postings. Winning entries will be decided by a democratic process, and that is the attraction, after-all, despite all the third-term brouhaha, we are still in a democracy! Regular Guardian Life Design readers will be constantly updated on these pages of current debates on the blog. Watch out for more information.

-Ayodele Arigbabu.
arigbs@gmail.com

Coming soon, posting from the Guardian Life Design Page archives. Stay tuned.