MARIAM KAMARA The architect shaping the future of Niger

Mariam Kamara

Mariam Kamara is dedicated to designing buildings in Niger that reflect the people and the place. The celebrated architect’s studio, Atelier Masomi, was only established in 2014, yet has already completed a number of projects that demonstrate how in tune Kamara’s approach is with her environment and the needs of her country’s population.

One problem that her work tackles is that many cities in African countries are built in the image of their colonial rulers, not their indigenous history. By contrast Kamara employs vernacular materials and methods.

“The spaces and environments that we create have a profound impact on us at a psychological level, they effect how we view ourselves,” she says. “I realised that architecture was a powerful tool for self-realisation. If you don't have anything that represents you, how are you supposed to have any sense of what you are? It’s like you don’t matter.”

Atelier Masomi is changing that narrative with its diverse output, from housing complexes and outdoor markets to cultural buildings and schools. “We have a certain introspection about how much more you can do beyond the brief. Not just a building for the building’s sake, but thinking about what the contribution is. What is the value?”

Kamara uses her local sensitivity and an understanding of behaviours to ensure that the structures she creates feel familiar to their users; that they are something the community recognise and understand. This ensures that her projects have a thoughtful, functional and graceful quality.

As Niger is a desert country, Kamara’s approach is also informed by the extreme climate. What better way to combat this than with materials that have proved useful for centuries? “I only have access to three materials — earth, metal and some concrete. There is some low-grade glass, but it’s not really worth using,” she explains. “You have to keep things simple, but you can make so many different things from a limited number of materials.”

The Hikma religious and secular complex, a remarkable mosque and library in the Hausa village of Dandaji in western Niger, is her most celebrated undertaking so far. This was a collaboration with Iranian architect Yasaman Esmaili, founder of Studio Chahar and fellow member of the global architecture collective united4design, which the pair co-founded in 2013. As two women from Muslim countries, they were excited to work on a project that redefi ned the boundary between the everyday and the divine. The poetry of the project is in the interaction between the two structures. On one side of the compound sits an original mosque, which the village had outgrown, and which had fallen into disrepair, now reborn as a library. Just across from it is a new mosque, larger than the previous one yet complimentary and sympathetic in style. The two façades face each other and a path takes individuals from

one to the other, manifesting in space and form the collapse of tensions between religious and secular knowledge.

“The current library used to be a mosque, so the link was immediate,” Kamara says of the project. “It was a building that the villagers were really familiar with, and there is a comfort in that. And then a mosque — no matter how old or new — is a building that is used every day, and there is comfort in that. The two together just made sense.”

The population of Dandaji is young and literacy rates are low, with the local middle school serving children from five surrounding villages. The new library has provided books, quiet spaces and a computer lab in an effort to boost graduation rates. It has also welcomed women’s groups, who now have a civic space where they can meet and run workshops. To renovate the building, Kamara and her team invited the masons who originally worked on the building back to the village to participate in the work, and they also contributed in the construction of the new one. For both they used compressed earth bricks, which are much easier to maintain than the adobe used on the original façade, but have the same thermal qualities. The project won the LafargeHolcim Awards for Sustainable Construction in 2017, and soon after Kamara was invited to join the Rolex Protégé programme, which entails a twoyear mentorship with David Adjaye.

Kamara has always loved architecture but, being a practical person, she studied computer science instead. “I wanted to be an architect since I was ten years old, but I didn’t think it was reasonable. I didn’t know any African architects then,” she says. The yearning never faded however, and several years into her computer-engineering career in the US, she quit and returned to school to follow her vocation, at the University of Washington. “While studying I would have moments at 3am when I would get overwhelmed and just tear up because I felt so in harmony,” she recalls.

Kamara now divides her time between Niamey, Niger’s capital, and Providence, near Boston, Massachusetts. At the moment she and Adjaye are working on a cultural centre in Niamey. During workshops with local youth to develop the project, it became clear that there was a hunger among them for learning. When presented with a series of objects they resonated most with books, which they saw as a means of experiencing worlds beyond their own lives. “The impact and the consequences of what you build are much more impactful in countries that are vulnerable. It’s not theoretical. There is a huge responsibility that comes with the practice,” she reflects. “However, something that serves purpose can also be beautiful.”