Sub-Saharan Africa

Cultural and Religious Park and Pavilions

This project of international importance saw the creation of a new national public park, located geographically and historically at the very heart of this East African country’s capital city.

Within this newly conceptualised parkland are nine museum-grade pavilions. Each of these, like the park, aims to describe and narrate the long, rich story of the nine tribes’ differing cultural and religious identities and how they managed to overcome their differences through co-operation, tolerance and shared mutual objectives to shape the present nation that they now call home.

These diverse and sensitive stories are intended to be told not only through the visual, audible and tactile exhibits, but also through the architectural form and materiality of each pavilion, as well as the plant species that surround them and their locations within the park. All of these elements contribute to the controlling and focusing of light and shade within each of these ethereal spaces.

The requirement to be able to represent and narrate such sensitive, complex and diverse subject matters, in addition to satisfying the clients final aspirations to demonstrate the nation’s desire for progress and modernity has led to the final engineered design for each pavilion. These designs explore and incorporate several next-generation development and construction technologies to develop and finish the pavilions to the level required for such an exemplary project