Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP): The Future of Making DK Osseo-Asare
I’ll start by saying it’s great to be back in London. I’m excited to be here and to be part of a really interesting series of conversations on the overlaps and commonalities in the various languages of design. It’s been 10 years since I was in London, when I spoke at the Royal Institute of British Architects as part of the Stephen Lawrence lecture series. Today, I want to talk about some of the work we’ve been doing in that 10-year period, some of the challenges that we’ve been facing and how we’re trying to conceptualise ways to make sense of those challenges.
afridesignx - 1 -
I am the co-Founder, along with Ryan Bollom of an architecture and design studio called Low Design Studio (LowDO). We are a transatlantic design studio based in both Ghana and Texas, and that’s very much a part of our practice - to think about what it means to practise globally and to deal with some of the challenges working in the African context. Recently, the Architectural Review did a profile on LowDO, in which they sourced a quote from almost 12 years
-1-
ABSTRACT: DK Osseo-Asare, Co-Founder of the architecture and design studio Low Design Office (LOWDO) and Associate Professor of Architecture and Engineering Design at Penn State College of Arts and Architecture, argues that Ghana’s Agbogbloshie is not a waste dump but a cumulation of micro-factories involved in recycling, repair and production. Using spatial mapping, design-thinking and architectural construction techniques, he has codeveloped the Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP), a set of small-scale, low-cost, open-source workspaces and toolkits to facilitate on-site fabrications.